SEAL. 



the hooks ; from which the people removed their 

 lacerated bodies at their leisure. 



But though seals have long been familiar to the 

 inhabitants of the coasts of most countries, their 

 natural history was long exceedingly obscure, and 

 still is so in many respects ; and the species, which are 

 naturally numerous, have been rendered still more so 

 by the description of them from single museum 

 specimens ; in which the same species was often 

 described as if it had been many, in consequence of 

 the variations of colour, from age, place, and season. 

 Indeed a seal, immediately out of the water, is not 

 of the same colour as one which has been exposed to 

 the air till it is completely dry ; arid in the former 

 state, the shade of colour depends a good deal on 

 the position of the light in which the animal is seen. 

 In endeavouring- to class them, we must therefore 

 leave colour out of the question, and attend to differ- 

 ences of structure only. The most obvious structural 

 difference, is the presence or the absence of external 

 ears ; and accordingly, this has been taken as the 

 foundation of two sub-genera, the name P/ioca, seal, 

 being restricted to those which have no external ears ; 

 and the name Ota.iia, eared-seal, given to those that 

 have them. It does not appear, hosvever, that any 

 thing important can be founded on this external dis- 

 tinction ; for, as we have said, the common seal of 

 our own shores hears very well, and it belongs to 

 the division which have not external ears. 



The different lengths of the muzzle have also been 

 made grounds of distinction ; and probably, with 

 better reason than the presence or absence of the 

 external conchse of the earS ; but still the differences 

 of habit which depend on the peculiar development 

 of this part, have not been ascertained, and therefore, 

 it can be regarded as little else than a part of the 

 detached description of the species. 



The teeth vary a good deal ; but then the varia- 

 tion is so gradual that it is not easily made the ground 

 of a clear distinction, which shall carry a difference 

 of habit along with it ; and without this as its 

 natural distinction, is of very little value. 



All the members of the seal family have the three 

 kinds of teeth, incisors, canines, and cheek teeth, 

 but the cheek teeth can in no instance be considered 

 grinders. Their crowns always consist of tubercles 

 more or less developed and separated from each 

 other, and never have a grinding surface, or one so 

 well calculated for bruising, as the tuberculated 

 teeth of the land carnivora. The canines, too, though 

 large and powerful, are not so completely wounding 

 or killing teeth as those of the land animals ; they 

 have the curvation backwards more sudden and nearer 

 the point, and thus they have a great deal of the 

 character of prehensile instruments. In some the 

 incisors are six in the upper jaw, and four in the 

 under ; in others there are six above and only two 

 below, and in others, again, there are four in each 

 jaw. The canines are two in each jaw, and never 

 wanting in any of the species. The cheek teeth are 

 sometimes four in each side of each jaw, sometimes 

 live below and six above, and sometimes six in both. 

 There is another distinction of the teeth which is 

 probably of more importance than any of these ; and 

 that is the form of the roots, though the differences 

 in this respect are generally accompanied with dif- 

 ferences in the crowns. In those which have the 

 crowns most trenchant, or with the tubercles most 

 completely developed and detached at their points, 



there are generally several roots or fangs : while in 

 those that have the crowns more simple, there is, 

 generally speaking, only one root. The chief differ- 

 ence in the habits supposed to be connected with this 

 difference in the general character of the teeth, is 

 that the trenchant teeth with several roots indicate 

 more of a terrestrial habit, or nature, at all events, 

 and those with the single rooted teeth more of an 

 aquatic one. 



But, notwithstanding these slight distinctions in 

 the form of the teeth, the food and manner of feed- 

 ing in the seals are very much alike in all the species. 

 It has been said that some of them eat the more 

 succulent kinds of sea-weed, which may be true, as 

 some fishes which feed generally upon animal sub- 

 stances do the same. But there is little doubt that 

 the staple food of the seals is fish, captured alive in 

 the free waters, an operation in which they are very 

 expert, as any one may see, who chances to observe 

 seals hunting salmon, when the latter are on their 

 march upward in the estuary of a river. 



M. F. Cuvier has investigated the anatomical 

 structure of the seals with very great attention, and 

 in as far as classification can be founded on that, his 

 divisions appear to be unexceptionable. But it must 

 be admitted that every classification of this kind is 

 in its very nature imperfect, as it does not reach the 

 habits of the animals, which of course can be studied 

 only in living nature. In this, comparatively little 

 has been done ; for though seals are objects of no 

 small commercial interest in the higher latitudes both 

 of the northern hemispheres and of the southern, 

 those who go to capture them pay no further atten- 

 tion to them than endeavouring to kill the greater 

 part of their numbers, which are all valuable for the 

 quantity and quality of their oil, and the use of their 

 skins as leather or as fur. 



He makes seven subgenera of the trenus Phoca ; 

 and the characters of these are pretty well defined, 

 though it is not always easy to adapt the species to 

 them. These subgenera are Calocephalus, Sleno- 

 rhyncua, Pelagius, Stemmatopus, Macrorhinus, Arcto- 

 cephahts and Platyrhyncus. 



CALOCEPHALUS. These have the cheek teeth 

 with one large point in the middle of the crown, with 

 one small one in advance of it, and two still smaller 

 in the rear. The cranium is enlarged and rounded 

 at the sides, and flat on the top, and only has a few 

 rugosities in place of an occipital crest. The teeth 

 are, in the upper jaw, three, four or six incisors, two 

 canines, and ten cheek teeth, or five on each side, 

 and in the lower jaw, four incisors, two canines, and 

 two cheek teeth. Almost the whole of this group 

 are inhabitants of the European seas, and the north 

 part of the Atlantic, and the higher the latitude they 

 are the more numerous. Jan Mayen and the other 

 small islands near the polar sea literally swarm with 

 them, and in the season ship-loads of them are caught 

 in a very short time. The species of this section 

 differ considerably from each oilier in appearance, 

 but there is much similarity in the habits of the whole 

 of them. The membranous sides of their feet are not 

 extended beyond the points of the toes on the hind 

 feet, and not so far on the fore ones. The toes gra- 

 dually diminish in length to the inner one, and the 

 outer ones on the hind feet are considerably larger 

 than the others. From this, arid also from the posi- 

 tion of these feet, and their being of the same length 

 as the tail, properly so called, they have the same 



