The intestines found their way into the soup-kettles without any observance of the preliminary home-processes. The cartilaginous parts of the fore-flippers were cut off in the _mêlée_, and passed round for the operation of chewing; and even the liver, warm and raw as it was, bade fair to be eaten before it had seen the pot. That night, on the large halting-floe to which, in contempt of the dangers of drifting, the happy adventurers had hauled their boats, two entire planks of the _Red Eric_ were devoted to the kindling of a large cooking-fire, and they enjoyed a bountiful and savage feast. Such is an experience of Arctic life; of the hardships endured by the heroic men who go forth to do the work of Science and Civilization. Returning to the seals, we may remark that, according to a scientific authority, the angle of weedy rock on which a phoca is accustomed to rest with his family comes to be regarded as his property, and no other individuals of his species are entitled to lay claim to it. Although in the water these animals congregate together in numerous herds, and protect and courageously defend one another, yet, when they have once emerged from their favourite element, they regard themselves on their own space of rock as in a sacred domicile, where no comrade has a right to intrude on their domestic tranquillity. If any stranger approach this family centre, the chief--or shall we call him the father?--prepares to repel by force what he considers an unwarrantable encroachment; and a terrible combat invariably ensues, which terminates only with the death of the lord of the rock, or the compulsory retreat of the intruder. But a family never seizes upon a larger tract than it absolutely requires, and lives peaceably with neighbouring families, from which it is seldom separated by a greater interval than forty or fifty paces. If compelled by necessity, they will even live on amicable terms at much closer quarters. Three or four families will share a rock, a cavern, or an ice-floe; but each occupies the place allotted to it at the original apportionment, and shuts himself within it, so to speak, nor ever meddles with individuals of another family. [Illustration: THE OTARY.] Our modern naturalists divide the Phocidæ into two distinct orders: the _Phocæ_ properly so called, which have no external ears, but only an auditory orifice on the surface of the head; and the _Otariæ_, which are provided with external organs.