92 Mr, Ball on the Species of Seals inhabiting the Irish Seas. 



Learning some time since that seals were frequent on the Sligo coast, I requested 

 Mr. T. Yeates of DrumclifF, in that county, to procure me specimens, and that gen- 

 tleman soon after apprised me that a youthful brother of his had surprised a seal on 

 shore, boldly seized it by the hinder extremities, and ultimately secured it. This 

 individual unfortunately died before an opportunity occurred of transmitting it 

 to me, and I received only the skull, which accords exactly with that of Phoca 

 Vitulina, as described by F. Cuvier. Professor Nilsson, on its being produced 

 to him, pronounced it to be identical with his Phoca Variegata. It agrees with 

 the figure by Sir E. Home in the Philsophical Transactions for 1822, of the skull 

 of a seal killed in the Orkneys, save that a few of the teeth in the upper jaw of 

 the figure seem to belong to a different species from the others, and were pro- 

 bably supplied to make up for loss of the original. Mr. Bell, however, (possibly 

 in consequence of these teeth,) has referred the plate to the species he calls 

 Phoca Groenlandica, but I rather apprehend that he is mistaken, for with the 



young one was at least three feet in length, and was estimated to weigh about 60 lbs. It was of a 

 canary colour on the back ; the remainder paler, without spot or mark, except the muzzle, which was 

 black ; its hair was long and silky. 



" Major Matthews states, that many years since he has seen from two to three hundred seals 

 together on the rocks near Springvale, where they are now scarce, not from havhig been destroyed, 

 but from the neighbourhood having become so much more populous, that the rocks they frequented 

 are daily traversed by persons collecting the edible seaweeds, (Rhodomenia Palmata, Porphyra Vul- 

 garis,) and limpets, (Patella Vulgaris.) They are still very numerous in the rocks a little farther 

 southward, where, in the perhaps somewhat exaggerated language of the country, they are said to be 

 seen ' in droves like sheep.' Major Matthews remarks, that when he has fired at seals looking 

 towards him, they always dived from the flash of the gun, and that he was only successful in shoot- 

 ing them when their eyes were turned from him. 



" From the description both of the young and adult animals above noticed, I had httle doubt 

 that they were your Halichcerus Griseus or Gryphus, and as their carcases still lay on the beach 

 where they were skinned at Springvale, about twenty miles distant, I had them brought to Belfast, 

 when by the aid of your lithographed drawings my supposition respecting their species was con- 

 firmed by actual inspection. I presented them to our Natural History Society, in whose Museum 

 the skeletons of both are now in part preserved. Here is also a specimen of the Phoca Vituhna, 

 which was shot December 28th, 1831, in the river Lagan, at some distance above the Long Bridge 

 at Belfast ; the tide, however, flows beyond the place where it was killed. Some years before a 

 seal was obtained in the same locality, and in a deep pool beneath one of the arches of the bridge 

 just mentioned. Our friend, Mr. G. C. Hyndman, on one occasion saw two young seals, most 

 probably of the common species." 



