24 SEALS AND WHALES OF THE BRITISH SEAS. 



grey, varying to nearly white, marked with a conspicuous band of dark brown 

 or black spots running into each other, which, commencing on the upper 

 part of the back between the shoulders and curving downwards, is continued 

 along the sides, disappearing before it reaches the hind flippers. The under 

 parts are a dingy white, and the muzzle nearly black. The female, according 

 to Dr. Brown, rarely reaches five feet in length, and is a dull white or 

 yellowish straw-colour, tawny on the back, and with similar markings to the 

 male, but somewhat lighter. Some are bluish or dark grey on the back, with 

 "oval markings of a dark colour apparently impressed on a yellowish or 

 reddish-brown ground : " these, Dr. Brown believes to be young females. 

 The adult Greenland Seal is readily recognized, but it varies so greatly in 

 its different stages of immaturity, and individuals differ so much from each 

 other, that the most trustworthy characters are to be found in the dentition 

 and the structure of the skull, which should in all cases be preserved, as 

 affording the most ready and reliable means of determining the species of 

 doubtful individuals. As has before been said, the second toe of the fore 

 flipper is the longest in this species. 



HOODED SEAL. 



The Hooded or Bladder-nosed Seal, Cystophora cristata (Erxleben), 

 fig. 5, has occurred at least thrice upon our shores. In June, 1847, a young 

 one was killed in the Orwell, and is now in the Ipswich Museum ; in 1872 

 a second young one was killed in Scotland near St. Andrew's ; and a third 

 specimen, an adult male, was caught in February, 1873, at Frodsham, on the 

 Cheshire side of the Mersey, and lived in captivity till the beginning of the 

 following June (Pr. Liverpool Soc. xxvii. p. 6'^^). Others are believed to have 



