158 The Scottish Naturalist. 



some of the crania of his seals they would have decided the 

 question definitely as to what species they belonged, whether 

 they were all H. gryfius, or whether some of them were not P. 

 barbata. As the matter stands the weight of evidence appears 

 in favour of the former seal. Whether the latter has occurred 

 anywhere in the British seas may be regarded meantime as an 

 open question. This much may be said, at any rate, it has not 

 heretofore been satisfactorily shown to have done so; at the same- 

 time it is a species that may turn up some day or other. As to 

 Parson's seal, it may or it may not have been of this species. 

 The late Dr. Gray, than whom none were more competent to 

 give an opinion on the subject, was, so far as I am aware, silent 

 regarding it : he placed it amongst the synonyms of P. barbata 

 with a query. Macgillivray's 1 Scottish example of P. barbata in 

 the Edinburgh Museum cannot now apparently be distinguished 

 in that collection. He may have been mistaken about it. 

 However this may be, it has been long known that a large 

 seal has been occasionally met with on the east coast, but, so 

 far as I can learn, it was not by any means a common animal. 

 With the exception of the Fame Islands, it is not mentioned as 

 of frequent occurrence anywhere near the mainland. Pennant 2 

 notices a large seal that was shot on the Sutherland coast. 

 Wilson 3 mentions one that was shot near Stonehaven by Lord 

 Cassilis. Don includes it in his list of the animals of Forfar- 

 shire, and St. John 4 shot one at the Findhorn that weighed 

 three hundred and sixty lbs. What species of seals these were 

 is a different matter ; the old authors, of course, called them 

 bai'bata. 



The Grey Seal seems to me to be the species most commonly 

 met with now on the east coast of Scotland. It may be seen 

 all the year through at the mouth of the Tay, and along by the 

 Carr Rock chiefly in summer. In autumn they congregate in 

 great force in the vicinity of the banks of the Tay. These 

 banks forming a favourite resting place for them when the tide 

 is out, as many as twenty having been counted at a time. 



In 1863 six specimens of this seal were caught in the salmon 

 nets at Tentsmuir, some of them large animals, and all 

 more or less ferocious and difficult to secure. The largest 

 example was estimated by the fishermen to weigh fifty stones. 



I Naturalists' Library. 2 Arctic Zoology, vol. I. 

 3 Mag. Zool. and Bot., vol. I. 4 Nat. Hist, and Sport in Moray. 



