226 SEA FABLES EXPLAINED. 



One calm sunny morning in August, 1881, a fine 

 schooner-yacht, on board of which I was a guest, was 

 slowly gliding out of the mouth of the river Maas, past the 

 Hook of Holland, into the North Sea, when a seal rose just 

 ahead of us, and assumed the attitude above described. 

 It waited whilst we passed it, inspecting us apparently with 

 the greatest interest ; then dived, swam in the direction in 

 which we were sailing, so as to intercept our course, and 

 came up again, sitting upright as before. This it repeated 

 three times, and so easily might it have been taken for 

 a mermaid, that one of the party, who was called on 

 deck to see it, thought, at first, that it was a boy who 

 had swam off from the shore to the vessel on a begging 

 expedition. 



Laing, in his account of a voyage to the North, mentions 

 having seen a seal under similar circumstances. 



A young seal which was brought from Yarmouth to the 

 Brighton Aquarium in 1873, habitually sat thus, showing 

 his head and a considerable portion of his body out of 

 water. His bath was so shallow in some parts that he was' 

 able to touch the bottom, and, with his after-flippers tucked 

 under him, like a lobster's tail, and spread out in front, he 

 would balance himself on his hind quarters, and look in- 

 quisitively at everybody, and listen attentively to every- 

 thing within sight and hearing. When he was satisfied 

 that no one was likely to interfere with him, and that it 

 was unnecessary to be on the alert, he would half-close his 

 beautiful, soft eyes, and either contentedly pat, stroke, and 

 scratch his little fat stomach with his right paw, or flap 

 both of them across his breast in a most ludicrous manner, 

 exactly as a cabman warms the tips of his fingers on a 

 wintry day, by swinging his arms vigorously across his 

 chest, and striking his hands against his body on either 



