464 Mr. Selby on the Great Seal of the Farn Islands. 



rate Seal-hunter), and to the annoyance they have since been 

 subjected to by the erection of the present outer lighthouse, 

 which is built upon an island to which they were in the habit 

 of retiring to rest during the recess of the tide. 



In the year 1772, this old gentleman informs me that he 

 killed seventy-two young seals, all of this species, and once also 

 killed fourteen old ones, in one day, upon the Crimston Rock, 

 the small island upon which they mostly calve, an event that 

 takes place, as I have previously observed, in the month of No- 

 vember ; and as the rutting season begins about the last week 

 in February or first week in March, it would appear that 

 the period of gestation of the Halichcerus griseus is about 

 eight and a half or nine months. The young when first calved 

 are nearly three feet in length, and grow very rapidly till they 

 quit the rock and are able to follow their dams to the water, 

 which is generally about a fortnight after birth ; when first 

 calved they are covered with a longish soft woolly hair, of a 

 yellowish white or cream-colour, which gives place before 

 they quit the rock to a shorter hair of a grisly hue. If an op- 

 portunity offers, the young are sometimes tethered by a rope 

 and kept upon the rock a week or two beyond the usual time, 

 in order to get them of as large a size and as fat as possible 

 before they are slaughtered ; but this must not be persisted in 

 too long, otherwise the dams are apt to forsake or refuse to 

 come ashore to suckle them at the stated times of tide. The 

 food of the Halichcerus consists entirely of fish, not restricted, 

 it is supposed, to any particular species, though they show a 

 great predilection for the Cyclostoma lumpus (Lump-sucker), 

 particularly to the female, which there goes by the name of the 

 Hush. These fish resort in great numbers, towards spring and 

 the early summer months, to the Farn Islands to cast their 

 spawn ; and when visiting the islands at this season I have 

 seen the skins of these fish, divested of their contents, floating 

 about in great numbers. When full grown, the male or Bull 

 Seals attain a length of upwards of eight feet : one of the 

 largest ever killed by Mr. Blacket, the old gentleman I have 

 alluded to, measured nine feet in length, and seven and a half 

 feet in girth immediately behind the flippers ; it weighed up- 

 wards of forty-seven stone, of fourteen pounds to the stone, 

 and produced twenty gallons of excellent oil. The proportion 

 of this valuable product, however, depends more on the con- 

 dition than the size of the animal. The females are inferior 

 in size to the males, and are readily known by their lighter 

 colour, being usually of a grisly white, rarely piebald, whereas 

 the Bulls appear of a deep gray or nearly black. They swim 

 with great strength and rapidity, and are frequently submerged 



