Habits of the Seal. 77 



cnmstance of that fish tempting it further within the reach of 

 human persecution than any other ; hence, I have often seen 

 seals rise to the surface to breathe with salmon in their 

 mouths, at that period of the year, when they lie in such num- 

 bers around the mouths of Irish and Scotch rivers, to cut off 

 the retreat of that fish into the sea, after depositing its eggs in 

 fresh water. 



The seal's throat is so provided with a valve at its entrance, 

 that the creature has no difficulty in swallowing its prey when 

 under water, without admitting the latter into the stomach. 



Of all aquatic genera of animals, the seal appears to be 

 the most widely distributed over the surface of the globe. The 

 common kind, although generally an inhabitant of temperate 

 seas, not only excites much interest by its annual and well- 

 conducted migrations from shore to shore, but often swims 

 northwards into very frigid regions, though seldom higher than 

 the 78th degree of latitude, where it associates with the Phocae 

 Greenland ica, cristata, and barbata. 



If we regard the antarctic regions, we find them no less the 

 abode and resort of seals than the arctic, as has been lately 

 signally evinced by the hundreds of thousands which were dis- 

 covered on that vast tract of desert land south of Cape Horn, 

 W'hich has been called South Shetland, and which coiiemences 

 about the 70th degree of latitude, and from whence they have 

 already almost been extirpated by unceasing persecution. From 

 these seas Lord Anson first brought to Europe the immense 

 Phoca Leonina, the Sea Lion, or Sea Elephant, as it is more 

 frequently called, from its possessing a short trunk, and beinga 

 creature of no less than 20 feet in length, and the largest species 

 known. Lord Anson was also, I believe, the first who described 

 the poisonous effects of the liver of the South Sea seals ; and I 

 have been informed by a Greenland Captain, that he himself, 

 and one or two others suffered very severely from partaking of 

 the kidney of the common seal. The Phoca leonina, closing the 

 extremity of its short trunk, greatly inflates it w'hen enraged ; so 

 likewise, in the North seas, the Phoca cristata, or bladder-nosed 

 seal, has a kind of hood on the head, which it can inflate ^^^th 

 air, and with it protect its eyes and nose when attacked : it 

 measures eight feet in length, and is very ferocious. But the 

 largest seal of our own seas, is the Phoca barbata, the specieg 



