212 



THE GREAT SEAL. 

 Phoca barbata. MULLER. 



nfuzzte very broad, the lips being remarkably tumid ; 

 uecn very small, grinders three-lobed, direct, at small in- 

 tervals ; pile brownish above, yellowish-grey beneath sfore 

 feet with the third toe longest. 



Phoca barbata, Muller, Zool. Dan. Prodr. 8; Fabr. Fauna 

 Greenland. 15; Desmar. Mammal. 246; Bell, Brit. Quadr. 

 274. 



THE Great Seal has not hitherto been satisfactorily 

 proved to occur on our coasts ; for the accounts of 

 it given by Dr Fleming, Mr Jenyns, and Mr Bell, 

 none of whom have taken their descriptions from 

 British specimens, obviously refer to the Grey Seal, 

 Phoca Gryphus. The Haaf-fish of Shetland and 

 Orkney, which Dr Fleming considers as Ph. barbata, 

 is proved by the -skeleton in the Museum of the Edin- 

 burgh College of Surgeons to be the Grey Seal ; and 

 all the Great Seals" of other authors, admitted 

 merely on report, probably belong to the same 

 species. 



