96 Mr. Ball on the Species of Seals inhabiting the Irish Seas. 



It may assist the investigation of the history of the seals of our coasts to 

 remark, that to observe them properly requires great patience and practice ; they 

 are exceedingly cautious, and retreat on the approach of man. The use of a 

 telescope greatly facilitates operations, for by sweeping from a distance the rocky 

 shores frequented by these animals, they may often be discovered where they 

 would not otherwise be seen, and may be cautiously advanced upon. Seals dive 

 out under boats entering their caves, and are probably thus seldom noticed except 

 by persons acquainted with their habits ; that they may be struck with a harpoon 

 in so passing, I satisfactorily proved in August, 1829,* when, assisted by some 

 friends, I succeeded in killing a very large Halichoerus at Howth. It was 

 one of several that passed under us with great velocity, about eight feet deep in 

 the water, each appearing like an enormous elongated globule of mercury as it 

 shot under the boat. The animal killed possessed great strength, it was a female, 

 and appeared to be suckling young at the time ; though judging from its much 



I singled out and shot the largest I could see, (which weighed afterwards twenty-six stone, and was 

 nearly six feet long,) as he was quite dead when I got up to him, I ran on, after loading my rifle 

 again, to the edge of the water, where the whole herd had plunged in, when I fired, knowing I was 

 sure of a shot on their rising, which many of them invariably do within a few yards of where they 

 dive. As there was a considerable descent to the water's edge I had nothing to rest my rifle on, 

 which from its great weight and length, upwards of five feet, I am generally obliged to do ; I made 

 my boatman stoop, and rested it on his back, and almost immediately the extraordinary seal came to 

 the surface, and I had ample time to observe him. The head was greatly larger than any I had 

 ever seen, with immense bladder-like protuberances over the eyes, incHning to the sides of the head. 

 The forehead appeared also uncommonly enlarged, and as I thought, deeply furrowed and wrinkled, 

 lessening gradually to the protuberances at either side ; it had external ears like a hound, but much 

 smaller in proportion to the size of the head. The colour was light brown, but it did not appear to 

 me to have spots like our common seal. I am quite certain it was much more than twice as large as 

 any of our common kind. From the uncouth, and 1 might say very unnatural appearance of the 

 animal, my poor boatman's superstitious fears so completely got the better of him, that he made a 

 sudden start, and fell forward among the rocks on which we were, and in the fall my rifle went off, 

 of course without effect, and I saw no more of the seal. I had my boatmen on the look out for 

 several tides, both there and at several other of their haunts on the coast, but never hoard of him 

 since. I recollect seeing one of the same kind, or at least having the protuberances, near the Island 

 of Anticosti, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence ; and last year, on my return to Oban from Staffa, a gen- 

 tleman told me he saw one a few days before in the Sound of Ulva that had external ears, and an 

 unusually large head." 



* For a more detailed account see Bell's British Quadrupeds, p. 282. 



