2o6 BRITISH MAMMALS 



howling at times, like dogs. Owing to its much less pro- 

 portionate cranial capacity the gray seal is a dull and sulky 

 creature as compared with the common seal. In confinement it 

 is morose and ill-tempered. 



When undisturbed by man it is fond of leaving the water in 

 the summer-time and basking for hours in the warm sunshine. 

 At intervals it stretches its muscles in a peculiar way by turning 

 the head backwards, and curving the hind flippers upwards till it 

 almost assumes the form of a flattened crescent. It is very 

 cautious nowadays about landing, and swims backwards and 

 forwards with its head high up out of the water. The creature 

 when pursued on shore gets over the ground a great deal faster 

 (for a short distance) than a man can walk, and helps itself 

 alternately with its fore paws, pressing them hard against the 

 surface of the ground to propel the body forwards. 



The gray seal is now limited in its British distribution to 

 the south, west, and north coasts of Ireland, the coasts of the 

 Hebrides, and the great islands to the west of Scotland, the 

 Orkneys, Shetlands, and here and there the east coast of Scotland. 

 Very rarely it is heard of off the coasts of Norfolk, Cornwall, 

 and Wales. The gray seal has been caught several times in the 

 Severn in the early part of the nineteenth century, and in 1857 

 one was killed on the coast of the Isle of Wight. In the middle 

 of the nineteenth century living specimens were occasionally sent 

 from the coast of Wales to the Zoological Gardens in London. 

 Outside the British Islands the range of the gray seal appears to 

 be limited to the coasts of Norway and Sweden, Spitzbergen, 

 Iceland, Greenland, and North America down to Nova Scotia. 



The sub-family of the Monachince^ or Monk Seals, is not 

 represented in British waters, its genera being confined to the 

 Mediterranean, the Tropical Atlantic, and the Antarctic Ocean. 



Sub-Family: CYSTOPHORIN^. THE HOODED SEALS 



This sub-family includes among its representatives the 

 enormous elephant seal of the Antarctic and Pacific Oceans. 

 The seals of this sub-family have the incisors reduced to two 



