642 



SEAL. 



nearly insulated at the borders. The young are more 

 inclined to white all over, but with a shade of ash 

 colour, and numerous spots on the under part of the 

 body. These spots are but faint in the young, and 

 vanish altogether in the full-grown animal. The teeth 

 also vary at different ages ; but the law or the causes 

 of their variation have not been made out. The 

 pairing usually takes place in June, and the young 

 are produced in the end of March or the beginning 

 of April following ; so that it is ascertained that in 

 this species the period of gestation is nine months, 

 which is probably the case in most of the others. 

 The produce is one, or at least very rarely two. The 

 food is understood to consist of fishes, Crustacea, and 

 of those floating animals which are met with in such 

 numbers at places where there are currents in the sea. 



THE HOODED OR CRESTED SEAL (P. cristatct}. This is 

 another species about which there has been no small 

 confusion. The most remarkable characteristic of 

 it is the hood or crest, which is attached to the head, 

 and capable of being not only erected, but of being ex- 

 tended so far as to cover over the muzzle. This singu- 

 lar appendage is, however, found in the mature males 

 only, and is wholly wanting in the females and the 

 young, which has led to the consideration of them as 

 different species from the males. The young are 

 entirely white ; but in the old ones the feet and the 

 muzzle are black, or, at all events, very deeply co- 

 loured. It is more plentiful toward the western parts 

 of the Arctic Sea than toward the eastern, and arrives 

 in very considerable numbers in Davis' Straits. The 

 males are understood to be polygamous ; and the 

 females have only a single young one at a birth, 

 which they are understood to drop on the ice about 

 the month of April. 



Many other seals have been mentioned by authors 

 as inhabiting the Northern Ocean and the European 

 seas ; but it is probable that many, if not the whole 

 of them, are only coloured or accidental varieties ; 

 and even if they are really species, so little is known 

 of their manners, and they are so much alike, in as 

 far as they are known, that there is no popular inte- 

 rest in them. There is, however, one species which 

 requires notice as being the type of F. Cuvier's genus 

 Pelagius, as being chiefly found in the Adriatic and 

 the Greek seas, and as being in all probability the 

 Phoca of Aristotle and Pliny. This is 



THE ADRIATIC SEAL (P. monachus), also called 

 the hooded seal, the monk seal, the Mediterranean 

 seal, and other names. It is rather a small species, 

 grey, marked with yellowish on the upper part, and 

 yellowish-white on the under. The whiskers are 

 long and stiff; and the claws on the hind feet are 

 merely rudimental. As is the case with the other 

 seals, this species is subject to very considerable dif- 

 ferences of colour. 



2. SEALS OF THE NORTH PACIFIC. The portion 

 of that ocean which narrows toward Behring's Strait, 

 has been already noticed as one of the great haunts 

 of the seal tribe ; but they have not been examined 

 with much attention to specific differences. They are 

 not confined to the extreme parts of the ocean, but 

 are found along the coast of America, and about the 

 islands till they range so far as to meet the seals of 

 the south ; but they are less numerous near the 

 equator than in the high latitudes. We have already 

 mentioned the advantages which the inhabitants of 

 the islands and shores of that sea derive from the 

 seals ; but, with the exception of the Russians in Siberia, 



there are not many fishers from the nations of the 

 west that resort to a place so very remote. The 

 names given to the seals, of which specimens have 

 been obtained from these parts of the world, are all 

 doubtful ; and the principal distinctions among them 

 are those of colour only. Those which have been 

 met with in the extreme north are of a white colour, 

 closely mottled over with small blackish spots ; those 

 which have been obtained from the Kurile Islands, 

 which may be considered as the south of the polar 

 portion of that sea, are exactly the reverse, or black, 

 covered over with white spots; and those of the Aleu- 

 tian Islands are yellowish-white without any spots, 

 and the young are said to be all over as white as snow. 

 Notwithstanding these varieties of colour, it does not 

 appear that there are any very marked specific 

 differences. 



3. SOUTH SEA SEALS. The seals of this part of 

 the ocean have a much wider range than those of 

 the north, and several of them are of more ample 

 size. The largest of them, and the one which is most 

 widely distributed, is 



THE LONG-NOSED SEAL (P. proboscidea], which is 

 also called the sea elephant, and various other names. 

 It is sometimes found thirty feet long, and eighteen 

 in circumference at the thickest part. It is generally of 

 a bluish-grey on the upper part, but it is also met 

 with, though more rarely, of a brown colour. The 

 canines in the lower jaw are large, strong, and con- 

 siderably bent, but projecting outwards. The bristles 

 of the mustachios are long and coarse, and twisted 

 like a kind of screw ; the eyes are large and pro- 

 minent; the fore paws are large and strong, with 

 only five rudimental claws on the posterior margin 

 of each ; the tail is very short, and only partially ap- 

 pears between the hind paws, which latter are broad 

 and flat. The most singular character of this species is, 

 however, the proboscis, which is peculiar to the male, 

 and appears on it only in the pairing season. This 

 is a cellular enlargement of the point of the nose, 

 soft, and barely perceptible in ordinary states, but 

 capable of being extended to the length of nearly a 

 foot, by the power which the animal has of injecting 

 blood into the cells. But though it has the position 

 of a proboscis, it has none of the action, and can be 

 looked upon in no other light than as a mere appen- 

 dage, similar, in season at least, to those which are 

 found on the heads of some gallinaceous birds, espe- 

 cially turkeys. The hair upon these animals is exceed- 

 ingly coarse; and in some seasons they get exceedingly 

 fat, and a single one, when in the best condition, will 

 yield a butt of oil. They also contain a great quantity 

 of blood. 



They are found in all places of what are called 

 the South Seas ; but always in the greater numbers 

 the higher the latitude. They are the principal seals 

 that are met with on the coasts of New Holland and 

 Van Diemen's Land, and on those of New Zealand ; 

 but in both situations it is on the south or polar 

 shores that they are principally to be met with. The 

 Falkland Isles, the New Orkney, and Shetland, and 

 all the dreary isles near the southern ice, abound with 

 them, and so do the numerous isles along the western 

 shore of South America ; but they are never as far 

 to the north as the Isle of Juan Fernandez. They 

 are represented as being migratory with the seasons, 

 moving northward in the winter and southward in the 

 summer, which are of course at the opposite times of 

 the year to the same seasons in our hemisphere. 



