1/4 THK PROBOSCIS-SEAL, OR SEA- ELEPHANT. 



" When one sees a brutal sailor armed with a heavy stick, 

 running sometimes for his amusement in the midst of these 

 marine herds, slaughtering as many seals as he chooses to 

 strike, and in a short time surrounded by their carcasses, one 

 cannot help lamenting that Nature should have left these 

 powerful, yet gentle and unfortunate creatures, such easy vic- 

 tims to the attacks of their enemies. This stunning of the 

 seal by a blow on the muzzle, like a stroke of lightning, is, 

 however, one of the most singular phenomena of animal 

 physiology. 



" On opening the stomachs of those which are killed, they 

 are commonly found to contain a great number of the beaks 

 of cuttle-fish, a good deal of sea- weed, as well as stones and 

 gravel ; but the remains of fishes, or of other vertebrated ani- 

 mals, are never found there. I ought here to observe, that, 

 notwithstanding the assertions of the older voyagers, it is not 

 true that these animals browse on the shore- side herbage, or 

 pluck the leaves of certain trees : the English fishermen po- 

 sitively deny it, and we never saw anything like it ourselves. 



" With respect to the stones which are commonly found in 

 the stomach of the proboscis-seal, this occurs in most of the 

 Phocidce. Sometimes these stones are so numerous and large, 

 that one can hardly conceive how the parietes of the stomach 

 can contain them without being torn by their weight. In a 

 species of seal (Otaria cinerea) at the Isle of Decres, I found 

 thirty-three stones of different weights accumulated in that 

 cavity. 



" It is not on account of the quality of the flesh, that 

 the periodical fisheries of the sea-elephants have been esta- 

 blished ; this is not only insipid, oily, and black, but it is 

 almost impossible to detach it from the layers of fat which 

 surround it. The tongue is the only part which furnishes 

 tolerable food ; and the fishermen salt them with great care, 

 and sell them at high prices. Our sailors also ate the heart, 

 but I thought it very hard and indigestible food. With re- 

 spect to the liver, which is esteemed in many species of seal, 

 it would seem to have in the sea-elephant some noxious pro- 

 perty ; for the English seamen, after having eaten of it, were 

 overcome with a stupifying drowsiness which lasted several 

 hours, and returned every time that they tasted this noxious 

 aliment. The fresh blubber of the proboscis-seal holds a great 

 reputation among the sailors for the healing of wounds ; and 

 they attribute to it the rapid cicatrization of the deep wounds 

 the seals themselves receive during their combats ; the En- 

 glish never use any other means in the daily and often severe 

 cuts they receive whilst skinning these animals and slicing 

 away the fat, &c. : nothing, they say, can exceed the prompti- 

 tude with which these wounds heal. 



