Animals: Sealers Three

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In the late autumn when North Atlantic seals seek warmer waters, a few usually find their way into Long Island Sound and bask there until spring comes. Some even frequent New York Harbor, dodging ferryboats and lying at the edge of Bedloe's Island, barking mischievously at the Statue of Liberty. Few residents of Long Island and Connecticut have ever seen a wild seal, but there are men who welcome a mild winter as an opportunity for the joyous, carefree sport of Sound sealing.

Out from Manhasset, L. I. one dark evening last fortnight put a small, dark craft called Tar Baby. Aboard were a banker, a broker, an aviator. Broker R. Snowden Andrews and Aviator John Petre were old sealers; Banker Edward Fletcher had never heard a seal bark. Thirty-six hours later the Tar Baby crept toward Goose Island, the Sound's favorite seal haunt. But the weather was thick, the seals kept away from the rocks where on bright days they bask. Patiently the banker, the broker, the aviator waited for another dawn. That day it snowed, they shivered aboard their boat all day. On the fourth day the skies cleared. Across the width of Goose Island the three men wriggled on their stomachs, waited uncomfortable hours within sight of some big, flat rocks. Finally, out of the water clambered a single big bull seal, settled himself oleaginously upon a rock. Flyer Petre drew bead, fired straight & true. The seal shivered, shook, flipped, flopped, floundered to the edge of the rock, plunked into the water with a permanent plop. The three huntsmen grappled for him, but grappled in vain. Sadly they set sail for Manhasset to wait another year.