156 



HARD WICKE 'S S CIENCE - G OS SIP. 



I have the fragments of several undescribed species 

 of Fenestella, but enough has been said in a popular 

 article to indicate the riches of the Carboniferous 

 formation ; and I now desire that local investigators 

 in and around Richmond and Hurst, in Yorkshire, 

 will search for species of Fencstella, Glauconome, 

 Ccriopo7'a, and Vmcularia, as the riches of this deposit 

 are equalled only by that of Hairmyre, in Scotland. 



Attercliffe, Sheffield. 



{To be coiid/tucd.) 



sometimes seen in the Hebrides, and believed by the 

 natives to be a distinct species : this was rendered 

 probable by their not associating with the common 

 seals, and not being so wild in their nature. It is 

 thought i^robable that this small seal may have been 

 P. hispida. I have more than once heard of small 

 dark-coloured seals having been seen on the Norfolk 

 and Lincolnshire coast, or exhibited in the towns, 

 which it is quite possible also may have belonged to 

 this species. That it inhabited the coast of Scotland 

 in the past, there is evidence in the abundance of the 



Fig. 145. Ringed or Marbled Seal [Phoca hispida, Schreber). 



ON THE SEALS AND WHALES OF THE 

 BRITISH SEAS. 



No. IL 



By Thomas Southwell, F.Z.S., 



Hon. Secretary to the Norfolk and Norwich 

 Naturalists' Society. 



THE only recorded instance of the occurrence of 

 the Ringed Seal, Phoca hispida, Schreber 

 (fig. 145), on the British coast, is that of an individual 

 captured on the Norfolk coast in June, 1846, and 

 purchased by Mr. J. II. Gumey, in the flesh, in the 

 Norwich fish-market, the skull of which is now in 

 the museum of that city. Although no other instance 

 of its occurrence is on record, it seems not improbable 

 that it may occasionally be met M'ith, and pass un- 

 recognized. In the first volume of the "Magazine of 

 Zoology and Botany," Mr. Wilson, in a paper on the 

 Scottish seals, speaks of a small seal which was 



remains of this species found in the glacial clays of 

 that country, as identified by Professor Turner.* At 

 present its home is the high latitudes of the Arctic 

 seas, especially parallels 76 and 77 deg. North. In 

 Davis's Straits it is found all the year round, particu- 

 larly up the ice-fjords, and many are killed in South 

 Greenland. Mr. Alston informs me, on the authority 

 of Captain Fielden, the naturalist to the expedition, 

 that this was the only species found by the late Arctic 

 expedition north of Cape Union, 82° 15' N. lat. 

 The small seal found in the inland fresh-waters of 

 Lake Baikal is believed to be a variety of this species, 

 differing only in its darker colour ; it is also said by 

 Wheelwright ("Scandinavian Fauna"), on what au- 

 thority I know not, to have been taken in the Channel 

 off the French coast. Dr. Brown, in his paper on the 

 "Greenland Seals" ("Proc. Zool. Soc," June, 1S6S), 



* yournal 0/ Anatomy and Physiology, 1870, p. 260. 



