SEA-DUCKS 381 



colour was clear brownish-grey, heavily splashed with 

 blotches of black ; and a conspicuous feature was the 

 singular swollen lump on the ridge of the nose, extending 

 from the eyes forward. 



After further fruitless efforts to secure an Atlantic bull, 

 I was fain to content myself with a specimen or two of the 

 common seal which weighed from 9 to 1 2 stone apiece. In 

 Northumberland, I have a note of a bull grey seal that 

 measured 8 feet 6 inches and scaled 44 stone : and have 

 myself seen a female with her cub, as early as November 

 1 3th, on the Crumstone rock. 



A serious drawback to the pursuit of wildfowl at sea on 

 this exposed coast is the risk of being caught in a sudden 

 gale, perhaps when several miles from shelter. This 

 contingency, which is ever impending, not unfrequently 

 bursts upon one without notice, and an unpleasant experi- 

 ence it is to undergo. Sea-kindly as northern cobles are, 

 they, and in fact all open boats, are unmercifully wet in a 

 gale at sea. Many a day which opens auspiciously with a 

 bright morning, calm sea, and fine land-breeze, ends in a wet 

 and miserable scuttle back to harbour in the teeth of a nor'- 

 easter, with three reefs in, and one "hand " at the halyards : 

 while sea after sea drives athwart the craft in hissing- 

 volume of green water. 



