94: PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



it, escaping from a land-locked strait, rushed through this narrow 

 gorge with such tremendous impetus that I felt sure at the time 

 no vessel could have stemmed its flow. John Macgillivray also 

 noticed the habit. He says : " During a storm, I have seen them 

 throwing themselves forward half out of the water several times 

 in succession; " and my friend, Mr. J. Henderson, of Mull, has seen 

 them doing so in calm weather before a storm. Mr. Henderson 

 has had much experience in the haunts and habits of Seals upon 

 the West Coast. 



I saw them on various occasions plunging and springing out of 

 the water. They looked like salmon bent in their spring, and 

 coming down head first. This appears to be quite a common 

 practice, and must not be confounded with the more direct and 

 forward movement witnessed when they are stemming a rapid. 



After accomplishing the ascent of an unusually strong and rapid 

 tide-way, they have been seen by Mr. Macdonald to pant for 

 breath, showing that this movement has been called forth by 

 unusual exertion. 



Other authors record this habit in the breeding season, and 

 assign it to the males chasing one another, but it appears evident 

 that it is practised at various times and seasons, and is not neces- 

 sarily connected with the combats of the males. 



Martin records that the inhabitants of the Long Island use the 

 flesh of the Seal for food, " and And it as nourishing as beef and 

 mutton" (op., cit., 2nd ed., p. 11).* 



It is perhaps worthy of record here that Seals are hardly ever 

 known to frequent sand-banks in the Sound of Harris. Mr. 

 Macdonald had never seen one upon a sand-bank; rocks are 

 invariably preferred. 



Captain Macdonald, of Stein, in Skye, who has had much experi- 

 ence of Seal-shooting on the west coast of that Island, finds that the 

 Seals there are generally fat, and that they float oftener and longer 

 when shot than they do in other localities known to him. In the 

 Sound of Harris it was quite provoking the number that were lost 

 after being shot in the water, when I was there this year. 



5. RINGED SEAL. 

 Phoca hispida, Schreber. Gaelic — Bodach? 

 Evidence of the occurrence of this species in the Hebrides on the 



* Vide Lawrence Edmonstone's "Seals of the Shetland Islands," 1837, p. 4. 



