268 AMPHIBIOUS QUADRUPEDS. 



muzzle ; and it is very probable they did not live 

 many years longer. In their natural state the old 

 ones are seen very fat and torpid, separated from 

 the rest, and, as it should seem, incapable of 

 procreation. 



As their chief food is fish, so they are very 

 expert at pursuing and catching it. In those 

 places where the herrings are seen in shoals, the 

 seals frequent, and destroy them by thousands. 

 When the herrings retire, the seal is then obliged 

 to hunt after fish that are stronger, and more 

 capable 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 escape 

 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 it to and fro, in 

 deep water, as a hound does a hare on land. 

 The mullet has been seen trying every art of eva- 

 sion, 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 

 jthan it could have swam in with the belly under- 

 most ; and thus at last it got free. 



As they are thus the tyrants of the clement in. 

 which they chiefly reside, so they are not very 



* British Zoology, vol. i. p. 75. 



