IN THE SHETLANDS 339 
—were relegated to one that, though an ordinary 
man might find it rather large for such a purpose, 
would be of a convenient size enough for Chang, or 
some other giant, to wash his hands in. In neither, 
naturally, could a pinnipede do himself justice, and 
perhaps these ones felt it more than the other kind. 
Now, however, I have seen them far more active in 
their native ocean, yet they fell short of those others, 
in captivity, to a degree which makes me think they 
would never be able to compete with them. 
It may be thought that the larger size of the sea- 
bear’s, or sea-lion’s flippers, and the greater use which 
they make of the anterior pair, simply and easily 
explains their greater speed in the water. But why, 
then, should the true seals—the phocide, which must 
once have been in the same sort of transition stage 
between ordinary walking and their own gait, that the 
otartide are now—why should they have passed for- 
ward into their present more fish-like condition, since 
both the advantage of walking has been thereby lost, 
and that of swift swimming seems to have been 
lessened ? Of two creatures, each of whom has, from 
once being a land-animal, become a water-animal, 
why should the one whose structure has been least 
modified in relation to the change, be more active in 
the water than the other? The phocide and otariide, 
it is true, though belonging to the same sub-order, 
may be the descendants of species that differed con- 
siderably from one another, and thus they may have 
undergone a different course of modification. The 
