124 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
may be seen all the year round. Off the southern shores of 
the Forth, from Dunbar to Prestonpans, I have watched them 
on many occasions, and I recently saw one living in confine- 
ment which had been taken in the salmon-nets at Dalmeny. 
But their headquarters appear to be on the north side of the 
firth westward from Aberdour, and in the bay above North 
Queensferry within the estuary proper. When boating among 
the islands off Aberdour during the summer months, I have 
invariably found them present, occasionally in considerable 
numbers. On New Year's day 1886, I discovered a small 
one, apparently asleep, on a rock in Dalgetty Bay. It being 
low water at the time, I was able to walk within 12 to 15 
yards of the animal, whose slumbers I rudely broke by a 
thump on the ribs with a good-sized stone. Instantly bending 
itself like a bow, with the central part alone resting on the 
rock, it gave a sudden jerk and sprang into the water. Once 
there it evidently considered itself safe, and, reappearing 
about 20 yards farther off, gazed in astonishment at the 
cause of the sudden interruption. 
The Du Craig, a small islet off Rosyth Castle above North 
Queensferry, has long been noted as a favourite haunt of the 
Common Seal (vide, for instance, Fyfe’s “Summer Life on 
Land and Water at South Queensferry,’ 1851, p. 270), 
When visiting this rock on 5th July 1884, for the purpose 
of identifying the terns which annually resort to it to breed, 
T noticed a number of Seals, some of which followed our boat 
at close quarters for a considerable distance. 
The following extract from the Accounts of the Lord High 
Treasurer of Scotland in the days of James IV., shows that 
Seals then, as now, frequented the Isle of May, to which 
that monarch was a frequent visitor. “1508[8 Mar.] Item, 
that day to the heremyt of Maij that brocht ane Selch to 
_ the King ... . xiiijs.” (Stuart’s “ Records of the Priory 
of the Isle of May,” p. lxxix), Sibbald, in his “ History of 
Fife and Kinross” (1710), mentions the Seal several times. 
Many of the “Phoca, or Vitulus marinus, the Seal: our 
fishers call it a Selch,” he says, “frequent the coasts of these 
two firths” (op. cit., ed. 1803, p. 114); and, speaking of the 
Isle of May, he remarks that “many Seals are slain upon 
