Seals and Whales 



BRITISH SEAS. 



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The two great groups of Marine Mammals known as Pinnipedia and 

 Cetacea, although widely separated from each other zoologically, naturally 

 present themselves to us side by side as inhabiting the same regions ; the 

 facilities for studying the one are also equally favourable for obtaining a 

 knowledge of the other. It is remarkable that in few groups of the animal 

 world, until recently, has so much confusion existed as in the Seals and 

 Whales. This has, of late years, through the labours of European and 

 American naturalists, to some extent been remedied, although very much 

 still remains to be done, the literature of the subject being still so scattered, 

 that much of it is inaccessible to the ordinary student. The arrangement and 

 nomenclature adopted in the following short account of the Seals and Whales 

 inhabiting or occurring in the seas, or on the shores, surrounding the British 

 Islands, is that used by Mr. Alston in the second edition of Bell's ' British 

 Quadrupeds.' 



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