THE GREAT GREY SEAL 35 



To-day the number of British seals killed and brought 

 to market is so small that no local fishery interests 

 would suffer were all protected by the law during the 

 spring and summer, when breeding and the rearing of 

 the young is in progress. There is even less reason for 

 objecting to the protection of the larger and rarer " Great 

 Grey Seal," which, unless it had been placed under the 

 shelter of an Act of Parliament, would in five or six 

 years have ceased to be a denizen of the British Islands. 



Owing to my having accidentally made the acquaint- 

 ance of a young grey seal, as mentioned above, in North 

 Cornwall, I feel a special interest in the legislative 

 protection of this kind. I was at Boscastle at the end 

 of August, and was delighted to see there on the 

 morning after my arrival three or four of the common 

 seal swimming in the little rock-bound harbour. I was 

 told by native authorities that there was a cave in the 

 rocks at the side of Pentargon Cove, a couple of miles 

 distant (formerly inaccessible from the cliffs), where 

 these seals breed, and that it had been the custom of 

 some of the young men of the district to go round 

 there in a boat when wind and tide served in the early 

 spring and " raid " the cave. They could get in at 

 low tide, and, armed with heavy cudgels, they would 

 attack the seals which were congregated in the cavern 

 , to the number of thirty or forty. A single well-delivered 

 blow on the nose was sufficient, I was assured, to kill a 

 full-grown seal, and if fortunate the raiders might secure 

 ten or a dozen seals, which were then sold for their skins 

 and oil to Bristol dealers. The enterprise was dangerous 

 on account of the rising tide and the struggles of the 

 seals and their assailants among the slippery rocks and 

 deep pools in the darkness of the cave. Cruel and 

 savage as the adventure was, it yet had its justification 



