372 THE SEAL. 



shore, each has its own peculiar rock, of which it takes 

 session, and where it sleeps when fatigued with fishing, un- 

 interrupted by any of the rest. 



As their chief food is fish, so they are very expert at 

 pursuing and catching it. In those places where the her- 

 rings are seen in shoals, the seals frequent and destroy 

 them by thousands. When the herring retires, the seal 

 is obliged to hunt after fish that are stronger and more ca- 

 pable of evading the pursuit : however, they are very 

 swift in deep waters, dive with great rapidity, and, while 

 the spectator eyes the spot at which they disappear, they 

 are seen to emerge at above a hundred yards distance. 

 The weaker fishes, therefore, have no other means to es- 

 cape their tyranny, but by darting into the shallows. The 

 seal has been seen to pursue a mullet, which is a, swift 

 swimmer, and to turn to and fro, in deep water, as a hound 

 does a hare on land. The mullet has been seen trying 

 every art of evasion ; and at last swimming into shallow 

 water, in hopes of escaping. There, however, the seal 

 followed ; so that the little animal had no other way left 

 to escape, but to throw itself on one side, by which means 

 it darted into shoaler water than it could have swam in 

 with the belly undermost ; and at last it got free. 



As they are thus the tyrants of the element in which 

 they reside, so they are not very fearful even upon land, 

 except on those shores which are thickly inhabited, and 

 from whence, they have been frequently pursued. Along 

 the desert coasts, where they are seldom interrupted by 

 man, they seem to be very bold and courageous ; if attack- 

 ed with stones, -like dogs, they bite such as are thrown 

 against them ; if encountered more closely, they make a 

 desperate resistance, and, while they have any life, attempt 

 to annoy their enemy. Some have been known, even 

 while they were skinning, to turn round and seize their 

 butchers; but they are generally despatched by a stun- 

 ning blow on the nose." They usually sleep soundly when 



