Notices respecting Neiv Books. 1.35 



than in the fore paws, and that the sliortest of them are in the 

 middle, and the longest on the outside of the [)aw. Tlie length 

 of an ordinary full grown seal is about seven or eight feet; and 

 its thickness at the shoulder four or five. It is covered with short 

 coarse thick hair, which varies in its colour with the different ages 

 of the animal. 



" The flesh of the seal is of a reddish colour, and is, by the 

 Greenlanders, accounted excellent food. Onr sailors esteemed 

 the entrails of a young one which they dressed, as equal to those 

 of a Iiog-. A seal will yield about twelve or fourteen gallons of 

 good oil ; their skins are very valuable, serving for covers to 

 trunks, vests, &c. and are now used to a very considerable extent 

 in the manufacture of shoes. The Greenlanders, who depend al- 

 most entirely for subsistence on this animal, make their bootT 

 and other articles of dress, as well as the inside of their huts, of 

 its skin. 



" The seal is a gregarious and polygamous animal. It is never 

 met with at a great distance from land, hut froq\ients the bays 

 and seas adjacent to the shore. It feeds promiscuously on most 

 sorts of small fish, hut chiefly on the spawn of the salmon. 



" Fabricius differs l)oth from Buffon and Pennant in asserting, 

 that the seal brings forth but one at a time, while they maintain 

 that it brings forth two*. At the time of parturition, it comes 

 on shore, and suckles its young there for aljout kIj: weeks l)efore 

 it takes them to the water, where it instructs them in swimming. 

 Though naturally timid, the female defends her young with great 

 boldness and spirit ; on other occasions they getierally place their 

 safety in flight ; but { have sometimes seen them throw back 

 stones and pieces of ice on the sailors who pursued them. 



" Seals delight to lie upon the ice, or on the shore, exposed 

 to the sun f ; they there sleep very jirofoundly, and fall an easy 

 prey to the sailors, who dispatch them by a blow on the nose. 



" Their voice has been not unaptly compared by Buffon to the 

 l>arking of a hoarse dog; when attacked, they make a more dole- 

 ful kind of noise. 



*' Pliny expresslv states this animal to be of a docile and tract- 

 able nature, and in this he is supported by the more enlarged ex- 

 perience of modern times. The seal described by Dr. Parsons % 

 was taught to come out of his tub, and return to the water, at the 

 eommaiid of its keeper, to stretch out its neck to kiss him, and 

 to perform several other motions. 



" Seals have a very delicate sense of hearing, and are very much 



♦ Perhaps Pliny has hit the truth, " Park nmqmm gcmim phtres." Nat. 

 Hist. lib. 9. § 13. 

 + Stcrnunl sc sotimo diverscB in littorc PktjCCB. Gcorg. lib, 4. 

 X Pennant's Quadrupeds, vol. ii. p. 272. 



I 4 delighted 



