CHAPTER IX 



SEALS 



SO many and diverse are the varieties of Seals, and 

 yet so closely are they allied, that I am compelled 

 to take them as one family, and in order to economy 

 of space and reader's patience, class them perfunctorily 

 as one family, which they really are, it is true, but very 

 widely severed. Still to the average reader, like 

 myself, a Seal is a Seal, and there's an end on't, whether 

 the precise naturalist may class it as Sea Lion, Sea 

 Bear, Sea Leopard, Harp Seal, Saddle-back Seal, or 

 any other arbitrary distinction whatever. These 

 minutiae, deeply valuable as they are, do not interest 

 us ; we only want to know enough to satisfy our 

 curiosity, not enough to qualify us to be curators of 

 our local museum. We have other work to do. From 

 the sea elephant then, down to the next largest, the 

 Sea Lion, is a longish step. No such gap, in point of 

 size, separates the rest of the Seals, wide as their 

 diversities are. But in one respect, agihty, speed, and 

 grace, tria juncta in uno, they are all far superior to 

 the sea elephant. 



No one who has ever watched a Seal in his native 

 element, and possessed anything of an eye for beauty 

 of curve and grace of motion, can ever forget the 

 exponent of these delights to the eye. No fish, swim 

 he swiftly as he may, can hope to escape the pursuit 

 of the Seal. Like a streak of brown light, he glides 



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