632 



SCUTELLERA SEAL. 



The greater part are hardy, and when brought into 

 the garden are planted in the open borders. 



SCUTELLERA (Lamarck; TETYRA, Fabricius). 

 An extensive genus of hemipterous insects, belonging 

 to the suborder Heteroplera, and family Pentalomidte, 

 having, as the generic name implies, the scutellumvery 

 Targe, and entirely covering the dorsal portion of the 

 abdomen and the wings. The habits of this group are 

 similar to to those of the Pcntatomce, Corn, &c. The 

 species are generally of large size, and often very 

 brilliantly coloured. They are, for the most part, 

 exotic. The genus has been much subdivided by 

 Hahn, Laporte, and Burmeister. The type is the 

 Cimex maurus of Linnaeus. 



SCUTIGERA (Latreille ; CERMATIA, Illiger). A 

 curious exotic genus of centipedes. See CHILOFODA. 



SCYDM^ENUS (Latreille). A genus of minute 

 coleopterous insects, belonging to the section Pen- 

 tamera, and constituting the type of the family Scyd- 

 mcenidcE, in which the antennae are straight, thickened 

 at the tips ; the maxillary palpi very long and thin ; 

 elytra covering the entire abdomen, thus differing 

 from the Pselaphidae, with which they have been sup- 

 posed to be allied. They are found in moss and in 

 damp situations. The type is Scydm. Hellwigii of 

 Latreille. Kunze and Denny have published good 

 monographs of this curious genus. 



SCYLL^EA (Lamarck and other modern authors). 

 Is a naked mollusc, its body elongated, very much 

 compressed, convex on its upper side, and provided 

 with a narrow-channelled foot; the head isdistinct,with 

 two large ear-shaped tentacula? divided at the external 

 side ; the mouth opens with two longitudinal lips, 

 armed with a pair of very large semilunar lateral 

 teeth ; the organs of respiration are in the form of 

 little tufts irregularly disposed on the appendages of 

 the skin. Only one species is at present known, and 

 it is extremely common in the Atlantic Ocean. 



SCYLLARUS (Fabricius). A genus of macrou- 

 rous decapod Crustacea, probably constituting the type 

 of a distinct family, having the body very broad and 

 flattened in front, and the lateral antennae converted 

 into a large flattened and horizontal crest on each 

 side, with the sides deeply notched ; the legs are all 

 simple, the anterior not' being formed into a claw as 

 in the majority of the crabs and lobsters. These curious 

 Crustacea are found in the ocean of tropical and 

 moderate latitudes, where they burrow in the bottom 

 of the sea, whence they come forth when the sea is 

 calm in search of their prey. They swim with a 

 leaping motion. They are eaten as shell-fish on the 

 southern shores of France, and the flesh of Scyllarus 

 orientalis is said to equal that of our choicest lobster. 

 The type is the Cancer arctus of Linna?us. There are 

 a considerable number of species. 



SEAFORTHIA (Dr. Brown). S. elegans \s a 

 New Holland palm, introduced to our collections 

 in 1822, and thrives in light sandy loam and heath 

 mould. 



SEAL (PnocA or rather PHOCID.E, the seal 

 family, as they admit of division into many sections, 

 sufficiently distinguished from each other for being 

 accounted separate genera). A very numerous 

 family of aquatic mammalia, breathing air like the 

 rest of the class and having warm blood, capable of 

 living on land, where they often resort for the pur- 

 pose of reposing, or basking themselves in the sun, 

 but having their principal habitat in the water, and 

 their bodies adapted for motion in that element rather 



than upon the land. Considered as regards their 

 structure, their principal habitat, and their motions, 

 they hold a place intermediate between the land 

 mammalia and the Cetacece, or whales. As they have 

 all the three kinds of teeth, they, in this part of their 

 structure, resemble the land carnivora, and they have 

 not a little of the sagacity and research which cha- 

 racterise, these animals. Cuvier has, accordingly, 

 placed them along with the morces, as the last group 

 of the placental carnivora, and immediately preceding 

 the marsupial animals. Perhaps it may ultimately 

 be found, that their characters are sufficiently distinct 

 from those of all the other mammalia, to entitle them 

 to rank as a separate order ; but their place in the 

 system is a matter of minor importance, so that the 

 animals themselves are properly understood. 



The members of the seal family are among the 

 most numerous of all mammalia that attain any 

 thing like an equal size ; and the herds of bisons, 

 antelopes, and other ruminating animals which con- 

 gregate in numbers, are really nothing to those of the 

 seal?. On some parts of the British coasts, especially 

 the more northern ones, they are plentiful ; but in 

 other places they literally swarm. Estuaries and straits 

 are their favourite grounds, evidently because the 

 fishes, which are more dispersed in the open seas, 

 congregate in greater numbers in the currents of 

 these narrow places. The fishes not only congre- 

 gate there in passing from the one sea to the other, 

 but they are generally more plentiful in such places 

 as constant residents. The reason is obvious : those 

 small animals upon which such fishes as do not 

 eat other fishes feed, are most abundant in the runs 

 of water in these places ; and this, of course, brings 

 both the fishes which teed upon the small matters, 

 and those which feed upon the fishes that do. In 

 the British Islands for instance, seals are most abund- 

 ant in the streams, and the friths or straits between 

 the islands ; and they give the preference to places 

 where there are rocks surrounded by the water, banks 

 alternately covered and exposed, and lonely and 

 covered shores. Not that they are timid animals, 

 for though very watchful, they are not timid ; but 

 they love places where they can enjoy themselves in 

 the sun or in the air, and get quickly into the water 

 in case of any alarm. We have mentioned that they 

 sleep on the banks, but they are never all asleep at 

 the same time. There are always sentinels ; and 

 when they give the alarm, the whole shuffle into the 

 water as fast as they can. Sounds appear to alarm 

 them more than sights do ; for one may row or sail 

 close to the place where dozens of them are basking 

 without any notice being taken ; but, if a shout is 

 set up, they are instantly in motion. A very cruel 

 mode of capturing them, founded on this, is, or at 

 least at one time was, practised on some of the rocky 

 shores of Britain. The places where this dry-land 

 fishing was carried on, were generally those where a 

 steep but not very high breast of rocks ran in the 

 middle of a beach, towards which it sloped at both 

 ends. The seals, when they came to bask, shuffled 

 up the sloping ends of the rock, and then lay upon 

 the top in considerable numbers. The breast of the 

 rock was set with large sharp pointed hooks, which 

 were the traps for the seals. A man came as near 

 to the rock as he could come without alarming them, 

 and fired a musket, at the report of which, they 

 scrambled over the breast of the rock, in order to 

 reach the water, and numbers of them were taken on 



