SEALS. 193 



assistance of the stake-nets, when he has comparatively little 

 trouble. 



I have frequently been told that the seal cannot remain 

 tinder water for more than a quarter of an hour without coming 

 to the surface to breathe. I am, however, confident that this 

 is not the case, and that he can continue for hours under the 

 water when lying undisturbed and at rest. If caught and 

 entangled in a net he is soon exhausted and drowned. 



I was assured by a man who was constantly in pursuit of 

 seals that one day, having found a very young one left by its 

 mother on the rocks, near Lossiemouth, he put it into a deep 

 round hole full of water left by the receding tide. For two 

 hours, during which he waited, expecting to see the old 

 female come in with the flow of the tide, the little animal 

 remained, as he expressed it, " like a stone " at the bottom of 

 the water, without moving or coming to the surface to 

 breathe. He then took it out, and found it as well and lively 

 as ever ; and on turning it loose into the sea it at once began 

 swimming about with some other young ones. 



In a creek of the sea where I sometimes watch for seals, I 

 have seen two or three come in with the flow of the tide. 

 After playing about for a short time, they have disappeared 

 under the water, and have not shown themselves again till 

 the receding tide has warned them that it was time to leave 

 the place. From the situation they were in, and the calmness 

 of the water, the seals could scarcely have put up their noses 

 to breathe without my having seen them. Apparently they 

 sunk to the bottom in a certain part of the bay, in order to 

 be at rest, arid remained there till the ebb was pretty far 

 advanced, when they reappeared in the same place where I 

 had lost sight of them, perhaps some hours before. It was 

 a curious and amusing sight to see these great creatures swim 

 up within a few yards of the ambuscade which I had erected 

 close to the narrow entrance where the tide came in to fill 

 the bay. At thirty or forty yards distance I found it 

 impossible to shoot a seal swimming, if he had seen me and 

 was watching my movements : my best chance always was 

 when the animal, having turned away, presented the broad 

 back of his head as a mark to my rifle. If I arrived at the 

 place in time to do so, I put up some small object at a 

 distance off on the side of the inlet opposite to where I was 

 concealed. This had the effect of distracting the attention of 

 the animal from his real danger. 



