THE CAENIVORA. 65 



The head and face are small, the molar teeth growing 

 Appearance, obliquely for want of room. In colour brown- 

 ^^- ish grey with dark-brown spots ; belly lighter 



and without spots. 



The Einged Seal is a rare visitor on our coasts, though 

 sufficiently common among the Norwegian fjords, where 



Kinged its blowhole is often seen in the young ice. 



Seal. rpj-^-g species is said to have occurred on our 



east coast within the last ten years. It does not breed on 

 our coasts. The teeth do not lie obliquely as in the last. 



The Harp Seal, a large, migratory, and gregarious 

 species, is one of the worst destroyers of salmon. It oc- 

 Harp casionally enters our rivers, having been taken 

 Seal. jjj ^]je Thames and the Severn, and has been 

 once at least recorded from the Irish coast. In colour it is 

 of a dark grey, having on the back a curious black mark, 

 to the supposed form of which it owes its trivial name. 



The Hooded Seal is named from the bladder-like process 



over the snout of the male, which, when inflated by the 



Hooded animal, in either anger or fear, assumes the 



Seal. form of a hood. This species, which is said to 



be of polygamous habits, finds its way but rarely to our 



coasts. 



The Grey Seal is easily distinguished froin the foregoing 

 by its flat skull, and is fairly common on the less fre- 

 quented tracts of the north-British and south-Irish coasts, 

 being well known to breed at the present day among the 

 Hebrides, but not on the mainland.^ I have seen one or 

 Grey two of these seals in the Baltic (Christmas 

 Seal. 1890), but they kept at a safe distance from 

 the boat from which we were shooting wildfowl. 



The Grey Seal is considered to lack the intelligence that 



1 Harvie-Brown and Buckley, Fauna of Argyll, p. 27. 



E 



