VOYAGE TO SPITZBERGEN. 75 



persed with some variety throughout the rest of 

 the ocean. Its head is large and flat ; the teeth 

 strong, and so sharp that I have seen it bite in 

 two the handspikes with which the men were at- 

 tempting to kill it ; the tongue is forked ; and it 

 is well furnished with whiskers around the mouth ; 

 has almost no external appearance of ears, but 

 merely an aperture to convey the sound to the 

 sensorium; the eyes are small, and have a haggard 

 appearance; the neck thickens as it approaches 

 the shoulder, the thickest part of the animal ; 

 from whence the body gradually tapers in a cy- 

 lindrical form, to the extremity, where the hind 

 legs are placed, between which is a very short 

 tail ; the fore paws consist of five fingers, joined 

 together by a membrane, and furnished with very 

 strong cylindrical nails ; the hind paws are formed 

 in the same way, except that the fingers are longer 

 than in the fore paws, and that the shortest of them 

 are in the middle, and the longest on the outside of 

 the paw. The length of an ordinary full grown seal 

 is about seven or eight feet ; and its thickness at 

 the shoulder four or five. It is covered with short 

 coarse thick hair, which varies in its colour with the 

 different ages of the animal. 



The flesh of the seal is of a reddish colour, and 



is, by the Greenlanders, accounted excellent food. 



e 2 



