454 Reminiscences of 



giving a feature not apparent when fish have been 

 kept a day or two. 



Eels display this element prominently, and also the 

 bull-head or horn-pout. The marine mammals may 

 receive large benefits from it in their long passages 

 in the sea. 



I am reminded of an account related to me by an 

 English friend, of a pet seal owned by some one he knew 

 who kept a lighthouse on the coast of England, which, 

 captured when a cub, was domesticated with the 

 family, being fed and allowed the range of the kitchen 

 on the ground floor, to which the seal had ready access. 

 This seal would make its way daily down to the water 

 and pass many hours in the element, securing more or 

 less food, but always returned to its place in the kitchen 

 at night. Blindness finally came on with age to the 

 seal, but it continued its journeys to the sea and, re- 

 turned home as regularly as before. Complete blind- 

 ness finally came to the seal, and, fully fed by the house- 

 hold, its visits to the sea became less frequent. As old 

 age came on, it caused annoyance by its peculiar cry 

 for food and lessened ability to get about ; so much so 

 that the family accounted it something of a nuisance, 

 and, not wishing to kill it, arranged with a fisherman to 

 carry it well off, some twenty miles away, and drop 

 it in the sea, expecting it would naturally die in that 

 element. But it appeared the second day after at its 

 accustomed place. Another effort was made to get 

 rid of it, by arranging with a sailing vessel to take it 

 several hundred miles out to sea and then drop it in. 

 This was done, and a number of days passed away 

 without the seal. Six or seven days after, during the 

 night, the kitchen maid, who slept adjoining the 



