APPENDIX. 155 



on mj mind that a seal had been a recent visitor 

 there. I need scarcely mention, that the salmon is 

 prevented coming out of the bag net, or fixed net, 

 bv a pecuhar instinct, although the door remains 

 open. By the kindness of my friend Doctor Ball, 

 Director of the University Museum, I have been 

 enabled to take the dimensions of a seal of this class, 

 which is at present in the museum, and which was 

 shot by one of the coast guard, in the River Liffey, 

 opposite the Custom House. It is two feet six 

 inches in girth, which would give a diameter of about 

 nine inches; and without even making allowances for 

 the flexible motions of the animal when alive, I state 

 it as a fact, that a herd of such animals could go into 

 a bag net, at any hour of the tide, day or night, and 

 help themselves to salmon, which it is their habit to 

 carry off to their haunts. Some guess, therefore, 

 may be made at the amount of their depredations. 

 Doctor Ball, who is a high authority, informs me 

 that the small seal might require for its sustenance 

 about a salmon per day, and the large seal probably 

 six or eight salmon. 



In a former letter I mentioned incidentally the 

 insufficiency of the present Act of Parhament for 

 the protection of the gravelin ; that little fish is 

 now ascertained to be the young of the salmon ; it 

 is not protected by the Act, by reason of a technical 

 error in the words used, which I formerly detailed, 

 and the injurious effect of the omission must be self- 

 evident. It is now proved not merely that the gra- 



