MARINE MAMMALS, AND FISHES in 



is perpendicular, not prone, as in ordinary marine 

 creatures. What could be more convincing ? 



This habit is so common with the seal, that one 

 wonders how anyone, living at the seaside, could be 

 unacquainted with it. Out on the Eden the other 

 morning with the mussel-dredgers, I noticed a 

 seal come to the surface, some fifty yards away. 

 Evidently taken by surprise, the animal rose partly 

 out of the water, as if to reconnoitre. While in 

 this upright position, he had a startlingly human 

 appearance. 



The sea-serpent is undoubtedly absent ; although 

 I have seen, even in our unpromising waters, an 

 atmospheric effect, or a tangle of drifting seaweed, 

 or a row of tumbling porpoises, or a spouting whale, 

 or a score of other things, which, acted on by the 

 fertile imagination, supposed to be the birthright 

 of skippers, were capable of giving rise to still 

 greater wonders. I have just heard of the master 

 of a fishing-boat here who saw one off Aberdeen. 



Dr. Key observes of the basking shark (Selache 

 maxima) that the large size, and habit of swim- 

 ming at the surface, with its dorsal fin, and part of 

 the back visible, and the jaw projecting out of 

 the water, as it moves with open mouth in pursuit 

 of prey, has suggested to ignorant credulity the 



