THE CAEXIYORA. 63 



otter is elongated and sinuous, the head flattened, as is 

 also the tail, the latter being thickest at the root, and 

 having beneath it two fetid glands. The eyes are small 

 and exceedingly bright, the ears short and rounded, the 

 muzzle broad and ornamented with sensitive whiskers, the 

 latter typical of the carnivora. Further, the nostrils are 

 narrow, and close hermetically under water. The snout is 

 so sensitive that a smart tap on it will kill or stun the 

 animal. In colour the soft under-fur is pale grey, shading at 

 the tip to brown ; the longer, coarser fur is of darker hue. 

 The narrowness of the gullet has also attracted notice, and 

 is thought to aid the otter in keeping under water without 

 too frequently rising to breathe. 



4. The Seals. 



Our coasts are visited by five seals and the walrus, the 

 latter differing in the position of the hind-limbs and the 

 possession of tusks, overgrown canines without root. The 

 horrors of the Behring Sea butchery, still fresh in the 

 public mind, roused considerable interest in these fur- 

 bearing, fin -footed amphibians. The com- 

 mercially useless seals of British estuaries are 

 slain whenever occasion offers, out of regard for their 

 destruction of salmon. For the greater part of the year 

 they subsist on flounders. 



Though separated from the true carnivora, there are 

 many points of outward resemblance between these crea- 

 tures and the otter, the chief difference lying in the limbs, 

 which in the seals are modified as flippers to suit the 

 requirements of an aquatic existence. Of the breeding 

 season of this group, writers and travellers give various 

 ^ accounts, some species apparently bringing 

 forth their young in the early spring, others 

 in late autumn. One point there seems, however, to be 

 in common between the young of all seals, and that is the 

 whiteness of their fur in the early days or weeks of their 



