136 CATALOGUE OF THE MAMMALIA OF 
Hogg contributed an account to Bell’s History of British Quad- 
rupeds, page 266. 
Through the kindness of Mr. Edward Backhouse of Sunderland 
we are enabled to give the following particulars respecting this 
interesting colony, obtained from Mr. John Franklin of Seaton 
Carew, an enthusiastic seal-hunter. “ Between the years 1820 
and 30 about 1,000 seals frequented the mouth of the Tees, of 
which as many as thirty might often be counted at one time. 
Last year the number was reduced to three, which still survive. 
The seals exhibit great dread of the steamboats, which have 
greatly increased in numbers on the river during the last few 
years, and at the same time the population in the neighbour- 
hood has increased enormously; to these causes may be attri- 
buted the rapid decrease of these animals.” 
“The weight of a large number killed by our informant varied 
from four to sixteen stones; the old ones average about fifteen 
stones, and are about four feet in girth and four and a-half feet 
in length. One washed up at Stranton, not mottled, weighed 
twenty-five stones.” (This was probably a specimen of the grey 
seal, Halicherus Grypus.) “The usual colour of the seal is 
mottled or light grey, the younger ones are often dark coloured 
but still mottled; the largest ones are generally the lightest in 
colour.” 
Another colony exists on the coast of Northumberland, 
opposite the Fern Islands, and round Holy Island, extending 
along the coast northward to Berwick. It is of this colony that 
Wallis speaks when he says ‘ This animal often leaves the sea 
to sleep on the sea rocks near Berwick-on-Tweed. To prevent 
danger by surprise one of them usually stands sentinel to give 
the rest notice, and if attacked they defend themselves with an 
extraordinary courage, casting stones by the help of their hinder 
legs with a surprising violence, and sometimes to a great dis- 
tance, upon their assailants. Being in less fear of women than of 
men, they often fall by the hands of men attired like women.”* 
Stray specimens occur along the coast at other places, as for 
example at Marsden, where one was caught and placed in a tub 
* Wallis’ Hist. North., 414. 
