IN THE SHETLANDS 375 
another species is a long step, and I have never yet 
read evidence to convince me it has been made. 
Speaking further of the habits of the common 
seal, Dr. Edmondstone says: “ Their time of ascend- 
ing the rocks is when the tide begins to fall—the 
water must be smooth and the wind off shore. The 
favourite seasons are late in spring and early autumn.” 
With so short an experience, perhaps, I should be 
chary of forming an opinion at variance with that of 
one who was “for more than twenty years engaged in 
hunting these animals.” But my affirmative evidence 
is good, as far as it goes, and what a few individuals 
do for a few days—or even what one does once—is 
in all probability done habitually by every member of 
the species. There were two kinds of rocks on which 
my seals lay, viz. those which were exposed only when 
the tide was more or less out, and those which were 
always exposed. They came to the first whilst they 
were still under water, and established themselves 
upon them as soon as it was possible to do so, and 
remained there, as a rule, until they were floated off 
by the returning tide. The second kind, as repre- 
sented by one great slanting slab, which was the 
favourite resort, they ascended and left at all times of 
the day, without any regard whatever to the state of 
the tide, the obvious reason being that the tide did 
not here affect their power of doing so. The rock 
which one seal made such persistent, though unsuc- 
cessful, efforts to get up on to, could only by possi- 
bility be scaled when the tide was at the full, and 
