588 PHOCA VITULINA HARBOR SEAL. 



stances of its capture in Lake Chamj)lain ; one of the specimens 

 he himself examined, and has published a careful description 

 of it, taken from the animal before it was skinned.* 



They are also known to ascend the Columbia Eiver as far as 

 the Dalles (above the Cascades, and about two hundred miles 

 from the sea), as well as the smaller rivers of the Pacific coast, 

 nearly to their sources. Mr. Brown states that " Dog Eiver, a 

 tributary of the Columbia, takes its name from a dog-like ani- 

 mal, probably a Seal, being seen in the lake whence the stream 

 rises." t 



Habits. The Harbor Seal is the only species of the family 

 known to be at all common on any i^art of the eastern coast of 

 the United States. Although it has been taken as far south as 

 Korth Carolina, it is found to be of very rare or accidental occur- 

 rence south of New Jersey. Resi)ecting its history here, little 

 has been recorded beyond the fact of its presence. Captain 

 Scammon has given a quite satisfactory account of its habits 

 and distribution as observed by him on the Pacific coast of the 

 United States, but under the supposition that it was a species 

 distinct from the well-known Phoca vitulina of the North At- 

 lantic. Owing to its rather southerly distribution, as compared 

 with its more exclusively boreal aflines, its biography has been 

 many times written in greater or less detail. Fabricius, as 

 early as 1791, devoted not less than twenty i)ages to its his- 

 tory, based in iDart on his acquaintance with it in Greenland, 



* His record of the capture of these examples is as follows : 



''While several persons were skating uj)on the ice on Lake Champlain, a 

 little south of Burlington, in February, 1810, they discovered a living Seal 

 in a wild state which had found its way through a crack and was crawling 

 upon the ice. They took oif their skates, with which they attacked and 

 killed it, and then drew it to the shore. It is said to have been 4^ feet long. 

 It must have reached our lake by way of the Saint Lawrence and Riche- 

 lieu. . . ." Kat. aiid Civil Hist, of Vermont, 1842, p. 38. 



"Another Seal was killed upon the ice between Burlington and Port Kent 

 on the 23d of February, 1846. Mr, Tabor, of Keeseville, and Messrs Morse 

 and Field, of Peru, were crossing over in sleighs when they discovered it 

 crawling upon the ice, and, attacking it with the butt end of their whips, 

 they succeeded in killing it and brought it on shore at Burlington, where it 

 was purchased by Morton Cole, Esq., and presented to the University of Ver- 

 mont, where its skin and skeleton are now preserved. ... At the time 

 the above-mentioned Seal was taken, the lake, with the exception of a few 

 cracks, was entirely covered with ice." Ibid., Append,, 1853, p. 13. 



tProc, Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, p. 412, footnote. 



