THE PROBOSCIS-SEAL, OR SEA-ELEPHANT. 147 



in water ; he is taught to give a salute with his head and his 

 voice ; he comes when called upon, and exhibits several other 

 marks of intelligence and docility. 



u His brain is of considerable size ; his senses are as good 

 as those of any quadruped ; and, consequently, his sensations 

 are equally vivacious, and his intellect equally active. Both 

 are exhibited in the gentleness of his manners, his social dis- 

 position, his affection for the female, his attention to his off- 

 spring, and in the expressive modulation of his voice, which 

 is superior to that of any other quadruped." 



Fishes constitute the natural food of the seals ; they devour 

 them in the water, and when they dive they are enabled to 

 close the nostrils by means of a sort of valve. As they are 

 able to remain long under water, Buffon supposed that this 

 faculty resulted from a peculiar conformation of the heart, 

 which allowed the venous blood to pass into the arterial system 

 without traversing the lungs; butCuvier asserts that this struc- 

 ture, viz. the open aperture of Botallius, does not exist in them, 

 but that they have, on the other hand, a large venous reservoir 

 in the liver, where the blood accumulates when impeded in its 

 passage through the lungs in consequence of the suspension 

 of breathing which must take place during the act of diving. 

 Their blood is very abundant, and dark-coloured. Their 

 tongue is smooth, and forked at the end; their stomach is 

 simple, their caecum short, and their intestinal canal long and 

 of equable diameter. 



The first natural division of the numerous family of the 

 seals is into those that have no external ears, and those which 

 possess these appendages. 



The seals of the first division have pointed incisors ; and all 

 their toes possess a certain degree of mobility, and are armed 

 with pointed claws placed on the edge of the uniting web. 

 Those which have six incisors above, and four below, form the 

 genus denominated by Frederick Cuvier Calocephalus, from 

 two Greek words signifying c well-formed head/ Those with 

 four incisors above and four below, and whose molaries are 

 deeply cleft into three points, constitute the genus which the 

 same naturalist has termed Stenorhi/nchus. A third group, 

 with the same number of incisors as the preceding, but with 

 the molaries ending in obtuse cones, is termed Pelagius. A 

 fourth division, with only two incisors in the lower jaw, bears 

 the name of Stemmatopas ; and, lastly, the earless seal, whose 

 figure illustrates the present article, and whose elongated 

 snout forms so striking a feature in his physiognomy, consti- 

 tutes the fifth subgeneric division of the French naturalist, 

 under the appropriate designation of Macrorhinus. 



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