586 PHOCA VITULINA HARBOR SEAL. 



good observer, I learn that every winter, years ago, it was ex- 

 pected that one or more seals would be killed ; and that about 

 1840, two were killed in March, which it was supposed had ac- 

 companied a school of herring up the river. 



" In my investigations in local archaeology I have found, in 

 some of the fresh- water shell-heaps, or rather camp-fire and fish- 

 ing-village sites along the river, fragments of bones which were 

 at the time identified as those of seals. I did not preserve them 

 as I had no knowledge of their being of interest. They were 

 associated with bones of deer, bear, elk, and large wading birds, 

 and then gave me the impression, which subsequent inquiry has 

 strengthened, that the seal, like many of our large mammals, 

 had disappeared gradually, as the country became more densely 

 settled, and that in pre-European times it was common, at cer- 

 tain seasons, both on the coast and inland."* 



In later communications (dated January 25 and March 20, 

 1879) he enclosed to me newspaper slips and notes respecting the 

 capture of eight specimens in New Jersey, mostly near Trentou r 

 during the winter of 1878->79. 



On the coast of Massachusetts they occur in considerable 

 numbers about the mouth of the Ipswich Kiver, where I have 

 sometimes observed half a score in sight at once. They are also 

 to be met with 'about the islands in Boston harbor, and along 

 the eastern shore of Cape Cod. Captain N. E. Atwood states 

 that they are now and then seen at Provincetown, and that in a 

 shallow bay west of Eainsford Island "many hundreds" may 

 be seen at any time in summer on a ledge of rocks that becomes 

 exposed at low water, t 



Further northward tl^ey become more numerous, particularly 

 on the coast of Maine and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Law- 

 rence, Newfoundland and Labrador, and are also common on 

 the shores of Davis ? s Strait and in Greenland, where, says Di\ 

 Eink, "it occurs here and there throughout the coast," and is 

 likewise t'o be met with at all seasons of the year. Mr. Kurnlien 

 says it is one of the "rarer species" in the Cumberland waters r 

 but its exact northern limit I have not seen stated. 



On the European coasts it is said to occur occasionally in the 

 Mediterranean, and to be not rare on the coast of Spain. It is. 

 more frequent on the coasts of France and the British Islands^ 

 and thence northward along the Scandinavian peninsula is the 



* Letter dated Trenton, N. J., Dec. 26, 1878. 

 tSee Bull.Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. i, p. 193. 



