THE GRAY SEAL 723 



and during the greater part of the next two days one continuous uncountable crowd is 

 constantly in sight. The whole procession coasts along at no great distance from the 

 shore, presenting to an eyewitness a most extraordinary scene. In all quarters, as far as 

 the eye can carry, nothing is visible but seals the sea seems paved with their heads." 



From the conformation of their hind-limbs, the true seals are unable to progress 

 on land in the manner characteristic of the eared seals and the walrus; both the latter 

 being able to bring their hind-limbs under the body by arching the back and carry- 

 ing forward the hind-feet by a kind of jerk. Very generally the true seals move on 

 land merely by a kind of wriggling motion of the body, with the fore-limbs held 

 close to the sides of the trunk and the hind-limbs stretched out straight behind. Dr. 

 Murie has, however, ascertained that in the case of the Greenland and crested seals 

 there is a kind of motion somewhat intermediate between the above and that charac- 

 teristic of the eared seals. Thus the former of these two species ' ' very often uses 

 its fore-limbs, placing these on the ground in a semigrasping manner, and, by an al- 

 ternate use of them, drags its body along. The hind-legs meantime are either trailed 

 behind slightly apart, or with opposed plantar surfaces slightly raised and shot stiffly 

 behind. On uneven ground, or in attempting to climb, a peculiar lateral wrig- 

 gling motion is made; and at such times, beside alternate palmar action, the body 

 and the hind-limbs describe a sinuous spiral track." On the other hand, the com- 

 mon seal appears far less capable of making use of. its fore-limbs in progression on 

 land, these being only occasionally employed to obtain a hold on rocks. 



On smooth ice, seals are able to progress with considerable rapidity; the average 

 rate being about one mile an hour in cool weather. Such journeys are always un- 

 dertaken during the night; and the seals advance by raising their bodies from the 

 ice by means of the fore-limbs, and then drawing themselves forward. On land, 

 seals will occasionally travel considerable distances; and it is on record that in the 

 winter of 1829 a gray seal in Norway traveled through the snow a distance of fully 

 thirty miles; the time occupied in accomplishing this journey being believed to have 

 been about a week, during which period the creature could not have touched food. 



The true seals are not a very ancient group, geologically speaking, although 

 their remains are found through the Pleistocene and Pliocene strata, and in a por- 

 tion of those belonging to the Miocene period. Fossil seals are very common in the 

 Pliocene deposits of Belgium; most of them being more or less nearly allied to the 

 species now inhabiting the Northern Hemisphere. It is very noteworthy that while 

 true seals range downward to the Miocene period, no remains which can be defi- 

 nitely assigned to the eared seals have hitherto been discovered in any but the most 

 recent and superficial deposits. If this apparently late origin of the eared seals be 

 confirmed by future researches, it will go far to confirm the suggestion that the lat- 

 ter have taken rise from land Carnivores quite independently of the true seals. 



THE GRAY SEAL 

 Genus Halichcerus 



The gray seal (^Halichcerus grypus}, which is the sole representative of its 

 genus, belongs to a group confined to the Northern Hemisphere, and distinguished 



