594 PHOCA VITULINA HARBOR SEAL. 



numbers, at a distance of a few yards, as though they fancied 

 they were the same species with themselves. " The gambols in 

 the water," he writes, u of my playful companions, and their 

 noise and merriment, seemed, to our imagination, to excite 

 them, and to make them course round us with greater rapidity 

 and animation." Mr. Bell also quotes Mr. Low as referring, in 

 his " Fauna Orcadensis," to their possession of a great deal of 

 curiosity. " If people are passing in boats, they often come 

 quite close up to the boat, and stare at them, following for a long 

 time together ; if people are speaking loud, they seem to won- 

 der what may be the matter. The church of Hoy, in Orkney, is 

 situated near a small sandy bay, much frequented by these crea- 

 tures ; and I observed when the bell rang for divine service, all 

 the Seals within hearing swam directly for the shore, and kept 

 looking about them, as if surprised rather than frightened, 

 and in this manner continued to wonder, as long as the bell 

 rung." * 



The Harbor Seal yields readily to domestication, and may be 

 easily taught a variety of tricks. In confinement it exhibits 

 great docility, and allows itself to be freely handled without 

 offering resistance or manifesting fear. A specimen exhibited 

 some years since in Boston, included, among its varied accom- 

 plishments, performances on the hand-organ. It is said to gen- 

 erally become greatly attached to its keeper, whom it will follow, 

 and whose call it readily obeys. Many accounts have been 

 published of its intelligence and docility in confinement.! 

 Captain Scammon refers to his having had several young ones 

 on ship-board, and says that a in every instance it was but a 

 few weeks before they would follow, if permitted, the one who 

 had especial charge of them, and when left solitary, they would 

 express discontent by a sort of mournful bleating." Of a 

 Leopard Seal, as he terms this species, kept at one time in Wood- 

 ward's Gardens, in San Francisco, California, he says : " This 

 little favorite has been a resident of that popular and interest- 



* Bell's British Quad., 1st ed., pp. 265-266. 



tDr. Edmonston seriously records the following: "The young ones are 

 easily domesticated, and display a great deal of sagacity. One in particu- 

 lar became so tame that it lay along the fire among the dogs, bathed in the 

 sea, and returned to the house, but having found the way to the byres, 

 used to steal there unobserved and suck the cows. On this account it was 

 discharged, and sent to its native element." A View of the Ancient and 

 Present State of the Zetland Islands, etc. Vol. ii, 1809, p. 293. 



