THE BRITISH MAMMALS : THEIR GENERA AND SPECIES. 57 



molars and premolars are small and pointed, with three or four cusps, 

 and most of them have two roots. The eye is large and fully open in 

 water, but half closed in air. Respiration is slow, as in all seals, there 

 being a two minutes' interval between each breath. A seal can 

 remain submerged for a quarter of an hour or thereabouts, but the 

 baby seal has always to be coaxed or forced by its parents to enter 

 the water. The Common Seal breeds on shore, generally on an 

 island, the others breed on the ice, but in all the young are born white, 

 as if to be invisible amid snow, but they become greyish before 

 taking to the sea. All three species are gregarious, especially the 

 Harp Seal ; only one is native, but no seal is claimed as British on 

 the strength of its having drifted ashore, the reason being that a seal 

 sinks as it dies. 



The Common Seal rarely exceeds five feet in length ; in colour it 

 may be averaged as yellowish grey with black and brown spots, the 

 under parts being paler and unspotted. The colour varies greatly, 

 but as a rule the male is darker than the female. This species can 

 always be distinguished by the compact, oblique setting of the side 

 teeth. The skull is thicker and proportionately larger than in the 

 other species ; the branches of the lower jaw are parallel to start 



COMMON SEAL. 

 (Phoca vitulina.) 



with, the premaxillaries are not laterally contiguous with the nasals, 

 and the after edge of the palate is deeply notched. The Common 

 Seal feeds mainly on fishes, and remains in the same localities all 

 the year through. It breeds on the smaller islands off the British 

 coasts; it is met with in the ; North Pacific as well as the North 

 Atlantic, but though ranging well north does not frequent the ice. 

 The young are born in May or June, there being one, occasionally 

 two, at a birth. 



The Ringed Seal is smaller and not so stoutly built, its length 

 being generally under four feet. It is blackish grey in colour, the 



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