374 SEASIDE DIVINITY. 



The Phocidce, or Seal family, are represented 

 on our sea-shores by some four different species, 

 of which the most familiar is the common seal. 



The common seal is a gregarious animal, and, 

 although the water is its chief abode, it haunts 

 caverns and recesses among the rocks, in which 

 it brings forth its young, which are generally two 

 in number, and are nursed by their mother with 

 great assiduity and tenderness. The favourite 

 food of this animal when inhabiting coasts at a 

 distance from rivers consists of almost any of the 

 larger kinds of fish, and it is said especially flat 

 fish ; but when it frequents the estuaries of our 

 larger rivers it makes terrible havoc among the 

 salmon, which it often pursues even into the nets 

 of the fisherman. The common seal is remark- 

 ably intelligent and docile. It is capable of being 

 tamed, and it evinces great affection for its master. 

 But one of the most remarkable of its peculiarities 

 is its marvellous fondness for music. Laing men- 

 tions, in his " Account of a Voyage to Spitzbergen," 

 that the tones of his violin would generally draw 

 around him an audience of seals who would follow 

 his boat for miles. In the " Naturalists' Library " 

 the following statement is made by an excellent 

 writer: "The fondness of these animals for 

 musical sounds is a curious peculiarity of their 

 nature, and has been to me often a subject of 

 interest and amusement. During a residence of 

 some years in one of the Hebrides I had many 

 opportunities of witnessing this peculiarity, and, in 



