GREAT SEAL. 149 



never seem to associate with the other species."* 

 A valuable addition has recently been made to our 

 knowledge of this Seal by Mr Selby, whose zeal for 

 our science needs no eulogium in these pages. 

 " This species," he remarks, " inhabits the Farn and 

 adjacent islands. It attains a very great size, se- 

 veral having been killed during the last summer 

 which weighed upwards of forty-five stones, or 630 

 pounds, and measured from ten to twelve feet in 

 length. This species calves in November, upon 

 several of the outer rocks, where the young are 

 suckled every tide for the space of fourteen or fif- 

 teen days, when the long woolly fur which first 

 clothed them is cast, and a new covering of close 

 short hair supersedes it ; they are then conducted 

 by the dam to the water, from which they only 

 emerge at intervals."! Dr Heysham has recorded 

 that this species has sometimes been driven by 

 tempests upon the coasts of Cumberland ;J and Mr 

 Maclean, minister of the parish of Small-Isles, He- 

 brides, mentions that the Great Seal is a distinct 

 species ; and, in proof, insists that it produces its 

 young at a different and later season of the year. 



These detached notices we thus associate under 

 the head of the Great Seal, or P. barbata ; not only 

 because they are so placed by their respective 

 authors, but also because, upon the whole, we are 



* View of the Zetland Islands, ii. 294. 

 f Bell's Brit. Quadrupeds, vol. i 276. 

 t Bingley, p. 97. 

 $ Stalls. Account, vol. xvii. 



