GREY SEAL 55 



GEEY SEAL. 

 Halichcerus grypus (Fahr.). 



This large Seal is well known in fluctuating numbers at 

 the mouth of the Tay, whence Professor Turner has received 

 specimens; and though I cannot point to a record of its 

 actual capture in the waters of the Forth, there can be no 

 doubt it has frequently visited, if indeed it does not habitually 

 frequent, the seaward portion of that firth as well. The 

 discovery of bones, identified by Dr M'Bain as belonging to 

 this species, in a kitchen-midden on Inchkeith, proves it to 

 have been an inhabitant of the firth in former times (" Proc. 

 Soc. Antiq. Scot.," ix., p. 453). 



So long ago as 1841, Selby recorded, in the " Annals and 

 Magazine of Natural History," the plentiful occurrence of 

 the Grey Seal on the Parne Islands off the coast of 

 Northumberland; and the "Great Seal" of Don's List of 

 Forfarshire Animals (Headrick's "Agriculture" of Angus, 

 1813, App., p. 37) is no doubt also referable to this species. 

 The late Mr Robert Walker, in an interesting article on the 

 species contributed to the "Scottish Naturalist" for 1875 

 (vol. iii., p. 158), expressed the opinion that it was then 

 the Seal most commonly met with on the east coast of 

 Scotland, but I scarcely think this is the case now, whatever 

 it may have been at that time. " It may be seen," he says, 

 " all the year through at the mouth of the Tay, and along 

 by the Carr Eock chiefly in summer. In autumn they 

 congregate in great force in the vicinity of the banks of the 

 Tay. These banks form a favourite resting place for them 

 when the tide is out, as many as twenty having been counted 

 at a time. In 1863 six specimens of this seal were caught 

 in the salmon nets at Tentsmuir, some of them large animals^ 



