The bachelor seals think they have as much right to a comfortable home as
the older seals, and so they fight hard to enter the villages.

This fighting keeps up the whole summer while the seals are out of the
water, and those who have seen these battles say that "night and day, the
sound of them is like that of an approaching railway train."

So steadily does the fighting continue that the old seals have no time to
eat, and during the three or four months they stay with their families on
the beaches they never take a mouthful of food. At the end of the time,
when they leave the rookeries, they are thin and miserable, and covered
with battle scars.

The killing of the seals should be carefully arranged with a knowledge of
these habits.

The proper rules are that no mother seals, baby seals, or father seals
shall be killed, but that the hunters shall watch until the badly behaved
bachelor seals have got tired with fighting, and gone up above the
rookeries to rest. The hunters ought then to creep in between the seals
and the water, and making a noise to frighten them drive them inland.

Every hunter should be armed with a wooden club, and when he has chosen a
seal that seems to be about two or three years old, he should strike it
with this club and kill it.

In this way a large number of seals can be obtained without disturbing the
rest of the flock.

The manner of killing that the United States complains of is that the