Habits of the Seal. 7? 



From such an aquatic conformation, then, it is sufficiently 

 obvious that the movements of the seal on the land are neces- 

 sarily slow and imperfect : they have been, not unaptly, com- 

 pared to those of a caterpillar, being chiefly effected by vertical 

 flexures of the spine. Nevertheless, even under these disad- 

 vantages, seals defend themselves and their young with their 

 teeth, with great courage and address ; thus I recollect having 

 seen a seaman who had been most severely wounded from 

 too daringly attacking a large seal. It was observed by Aris- 

 totle, that most animals have their fore teeth sharp and their 

 inward teeth broad ; but that the seal has them all pointed ; 

 now, in fact, in the different species of seal, the skull not only 

 affords much variety in its form, but their teeth differ so greatly 

 from each other, that nothing would be more easy, were it by 

 any means desirable, than to substitute new generic names for 

 almost every known species. These differences are well exem- 

 plified in the various specimens before you, in which we observe 

 their front teeth to vary in number, having either four or six above 

 and four below, while their molares vary from sixteen to twenty- 

 four, all of which, in common with their canine teeth, have more 

 or less pointed surfaces. 



In the Northern seals, the front teeth above have single points; 

 but in the antarctic species, the four middle, upper, and, indeed, 

 lower front teeth have a double edge, the two outer ones having 

 single points : their molares are either simply conical, like those 

 of the common seal, or are each armed with three points as in 

 the Phoca Grcenlandica. 



As sub-aquatic pursuits were those destined for the seal, 

 and as these were liable to be often accompanied with labour 

 and difficulty, it is obvious that they could not be carried on 

 by animals internally organized like those of the land ; for the 

 necessity for so frequently rising to the surface to breathe, 

 would have been an effectual impediment to their success. 

 The Creator has, therefore, so modified the mode of circulation 

 in the seal, that this inconvenience has been counteracted, and 

 yet this has not been effected as in the reptiles ; for in them 

 the vessels of the heart are so constructed, that the blood can 

 flow freely through them, without" going to the lungs, and 

 thereby occasioning a necessity for breathing; nor (which 



