214 THE BIRD WATCHER 
this dark, still, frowngpe bay. I can gloat on what I 
see here. 
I watched these seals of mine on this, my first 
meeting with them, for a considerable time from the 
top of the cliffs—the glasses giving me a splendid 
view—and soon knew more about them than I had 
before, and got rid of some popular errors. For 
instance, I had always imagined that seals had one set 
attitude for lying on the rocks—viz. flat on their 
bellies—-a delusion which every picture of them in 
this connection had helped to foster. Imagine my 
surprise and delight when it burst upon me that only 
some three or four were in this attitude, and that 
even these did not retain it for long. No; instead of 
being in this state of uninteresting orthodoxy, they 
lay in the most delightful free-thinking poses, on 
their sides, or much more than on their sides, showing — 
their fine portly columnar bellies in varying degrees 
and proportions, whilst one utter infidel was right 
and full upon his broad back—yet looked like the 
carved image of some old crusader on the lid of his 
stone sarcophagus. Then every now and again they 
would give themselves a hitch, and bring their heads 
up, showing their fine round foreheads ‘and large 
mild eyes; a very human— mildly human —and 
extremely intelligent appearance they had, looking 
down upon them from above. Again, they had the 
oddest or oddest-appearing actions, especially that 
of pressing their two hind feet or flippers together, 
with all their five webbed toes spread out in a fan, 
