Mr. Ball on the Species of Seals inhabiting the Irish Seas. 91 



of this specimen, that Phoea Barbata has occupied a place in the British Fauna. 

 Sir Everard Home, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1822, gives a figure of 

 a cranium, from a drawing of Mr. Hunter's, of a " skull of the great seal so 

 many years deposited in the Museum, from the South Seas." Here, I suspect, 

 some mistake has been made, and that the skull may have belonged to Donovan's 

 seal, for I have a similar skull of one killed by myself, the skin of vphich was 

 precisely like that just referred to. If Sir Everard Home's account be cor- 

 rect, the geographical distribution of the Halichoerus is indeed most strangely 

 anomalous. I find the Palatal Foramina furnish an excellent character to distin- 

 guish the crania of the Halichoerus, (in the absence of teeth,) for they open in 

 or on the palatal bones, while in all the skulls I have seen of Phoca they open 

 in the maxillaries at more or less distance from their junction with these bones. 

 Mr. Bell has just restored the original and appropriate specific name, and 

 described our seal under the name of Halichoerus Gryphus accordingly.* 



* W. Thompson, Esq., Vice-President of the Belfast Natural History Society, communicated 

 to me in a letter the following interesting particulars, partly extracted from his journal, relative to 

 the capture of a female Halichoerus with its young : 



« January 2\st, 1837. 



" George Matthews, Esq., of Springvale, in the County of Down, informed me to-day that about 

 three weeks ago, when setting out to shoot wildfowl near Ballywalter, accompanied by an attendant, 

 they observed an old and young seal upon the rocks at such a distance from the sea as induced them 

 to commence pursuit, in the hope of intercepting them on their return to it. In this they were so 

 far successful as to capture the young one, which they fastened to the rock, hoping that its cries, 

 which they compared to those of a calf, might attract the parent within gun-shot. They then con- 

 cealed themselves to the windward of the old one, and for about an hour and a half saw it emerge at 

 the distance of from four to five hundred yards, at least once every ten or fifteen minutes, but occa- 

 sionally much more frequently. Seeing that it came no closer to the land, they changed their 

 position to leeward, which they had no sooner done, than its nearer approach was apparent ; and 

 when from one hundred and fifty to two hundred yards from the shore, my friend fired at it with a 

 musket charged with a single ball, which after passing through its head, was remarked to strike, the 

 water forcibly about forty yards further on. Life was not quite extinct when it was rowed up to. 

 When brought ashore milk was extracted from its mamm%. This animal was of a uniform whitish 

 grey colour, with darker spots ; it weighed 3 cwt. and 18 lbs., but when in good condition would 

 probably have been 4 cwt. On skinning it, two pellets were taken from near the hinder extremity, 

 and a grain of large shot from the head ; it had frequently been fired at before, and from superiority 

 of size, had for many years been a well known character on the coast, and was distinguished by the 

 name of Old Skull, in consequence of its favorite resort being a rock called Skull-Martin. The 



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