2 The Scottish Naturalist. 



into the sea. It presented a somewhat fierce and threat- 

 ening-looking demeanour to the man who first saw it, suffi- 

 ciently warning him that an attempt on his part to approach 

 near too rashly would not be quietly tolerated, and might, if 

 persisted in, be attended with rather unpleasant consequences 

 to himself. It seems to have made no effort to escape, and 

 was ultimately struck repeatedly on the head with stones until 

 dead. It is said to have exhibited great tenacity of life. 



On dissection it proved to be a young male, very fat; the 

 stomach was about half full of what appeared to be estuary 

 sand and mud, with a few small entozoa here and there through 

 it It measured forty-seven inches in length. The body stout, 

 roundish, and gradually diminishing from a little behind the 

 shoulders to the tail. The head short, round, and broad over 

 the muzzle. The septum between the nostrils hairy. The 

 upper part of the head, the back and half-way down the sides, 

 of a bluish black colour when wet ; of a dark grey when dry ; 

 the lower parts and halfway up the sides, of a yellowish white; 

 on the sides of the neck this colour extends up to within about 

 an inch of the eyes, and thence along the upper lip under the 

 nostrils. The anteiior limbs are the same colour on the upper 

 sides as the back, the lower whitish with a streak of grey ex- 

 tending obliquely across them. The upper surfaces of the 

 posterior limbs and the tail are of a darker colour than the 

 back, their lower sides whitish grey. The webs between the toes 

 hairy. The hair is longish on the back, and somewhat erect ; 

 there is a finer and darker fur next the skin. The whiskers are 

 longish, and directed downwards ; the hairs are waved and gra- 

 dually taper to fine points, the upper ones dark grey, the lower 

 yellowish white. Eyes, three and one-fourth inches behind the 

 extremity of the nose, black, iris dark brown ; they are large, 

 round, two inches in diameter, when removed from the sockets. 

 The orifices of the ears — there are no external auricles — are 

 small and situated about one and three-fourths of an inch behind 

 and below the eyes. The fore limbs are short, with five fingers 

 each, the outside one longest, the others gradually becoming 

 shorter, but so regularly graduated, that the points of the claws 

 are in a straight line or thereby with each other. The hind 

 limbs have five toes each, the inner one longest, the outer one 

 about half-an-inch shorter, the second and fourth about the 



