64 MAMMALS. 



existence, and the curious reluctance with which many of 

 them take to the water until driven to it by their parents. 

 No British seal has either external ears or under-fur, and 

 it is in consequence of the latter deficiency that none has 

 any commercial value whatever. 



The Common Seal is nowadays confined for the most part 



to the northern estuaries, though I have twice come across 



Common solitary examples on the Cornish coast. Not 



in the ordinary course a strictly migratory 



species, it nevertheless occasionally finds its way up the 



river Thames, where it is promptly shot by some riverside 



loafer, and reappears a few weeks later grinning against 

 an unnatural background from the farther side of a glass 

 case. A similar fate befell one a year or two ago above 

 Conway Bridge in Wales. Harvie-Brown and Buckley l 

 mention the occurrence of this seal in Loch Awe, and 

 quote a case in Loch Suinart in which one took a small 

 coal-fish off a hook. 2 



The common seal breeds on our northern coast in the 



Breeding. summ er ; one, or at most two, would seem to 



be produced at a birth, and some females are 



said to breed only in alternate years. This species is of 



gregarious habits. 



' Fauna of Argyll, p. 21. 2 Ibi(L> p> 24 



