SEALS. 155 



parts blackish-grey, generally marked with more or less distinct 

 oval whitish rings ; under-parts whitish ; hair soft, and nearly 

 erect. Cheek-teeth not crowded together, and placed in a 

 straight line. Total length, generally from 3 to 4 feet. 



The skull may be distinguished by the pre-maxillary bones 

 (those carrying the incisor teeth) running up some distance by 

 the sides of the nasals, instead of not touching them at all, or 

 only at the tips ; while the hinder foramina on the palate open 

 either on or behind the suture between the maxillae and pala- 

 tine bones, instead of in the maxillae themselves. 



Distribution. — But a very rare and casual visitor to the British 

 coasts, the Ringed Seal is an essentially northern species, in- 

 habiting the Arctic Ocean and the shores of the North Atlantic 

 and North Pacific, being especially plentiful among the ice- 

 floes of Davis Strait, but in Greenland mainly confined to the 

 northern districts. An undoubted example of this Seal was 

 taken on the Norfolk coast in 1846, and sold in a fresh con 

 dition in the Norwich market ; and there is some evidence that 

 the species occasionally visits the Hebrides. It is also stated 

 by Mr. J. Cordeaux that an example occurred on the Lincoln- 

 shire coast so recently as the year 1889. Sir William Turner 

 records its remains from the glacial clays of various parts of 

 Scotland. 



Habits. — On this point it will suffice to say that this species 

 is an Ice-Seal, dwelling in the neighbourhood of the coast-ice 

 of the northern oceans, and seldom visiting the open sea. In 

 such situations it preys on fish which are captured in a hole 

 ;kept open, by some means not fully known, in the ice; passing 

 such portions of its time as are not occupied in fishing, in sleep. 

 The single offspring is born late in the winter or early in the 

 spring on the solid ice, and is stated to take to the water 

 'before shedding its baby-coat of light-coloured hair, which is 



