A SEAL FIGHT. 255 



glance of his beautiful dark-brown eye, and count, if need were, 

 every separate bristle in his moustache. He is a big and powerful 

 animal, and when in our bay doubtless accounts himself lord of all 

 he surveys, for, of the hundreds of seals in Loch Leven, he alone 

 constantly frequents this particular semi-oval, sandy-bottomed inlet, 

 his size and strength probably ensuring it to him as a sort of 

 reserve, in which woe unto the interloping poacher caught sight of 

 flagrante delicto by the bright eye of " Lord Nelson," as we have 

 long since called him, and all the people about call him, for he is now 

 known to everybody in the hamlet, and frequently spoken about 

 with all the interest attached to a wild animal, actually suspicious 

 and shy, but perfectly harmless, when, with a confidence extremely 

 rare in animals of its kind, it approaches human habitations. On 

 the afternoon of Friday last, " Nelson " was fishing, as usual, in our 

 bay, which at the time was mirror-smooth and calm as calm 

 could be. We had watched him for some time through our glass, 

 and seen him come to the surface more than once, and dispose of a 

 flounder in his usual quiet and leisurely way, when, somewhat to 

 our surprise, we caught sight of another seal, seemingly as large as 

 " Nelson " himself, and about a hundred yards from him ; and at 

 the same moment his " lordship " evidently saw him too ! There 

 could be no mistake about it, for he, first raising himself half-way 

 out of the water, and gazing excitedly around, with a splendid 

 header and a very significant flourish of his hind flippers, instantly 

 dived ; the stranger seal also, who probably knew what was coming, 

 diving immediately afterwards. What happened below is only 

 known to such subaqueous spectators as might be about at the 

 moment ; we can only bear witness to what followed, and that was, 

 that in about two minutes there was wild splashing and violent 

 co'famotion of the waters near the spot at which the stranger 

 seal had disappeared, from the centre of which turmoil the two 

 seals soon emerged, fighting in fierce grip like a pair of enraged 



