AQUATIC MAMMALS 



VI. Order Carnivora, or Flesh-eating Aquatic 



Mammals 



Common Seal. — The three commoner species of 

 Seals which are entitled to inclusion in this volume all 

 claim kinship with the family Phocidce, though the Great 

 Grey Seal belongs to a different genus, Halichoerus. 

 The two others are included under the genus Phoca. 

 They are fin-bearing, fin-footed amphibians, belonging 

 to the flesh-eating aquatic mammals, and although those 

 which regularly or occasionally frequent British waters 

 are of no value commercially, they are often slain at 

 sight without any court of enquiry being held as to their 

 guilt of feeding upon creatures utilised as food by man. 



Our British Seals, for example, are accused of preying 

 upon Salmon, but one careful observer states that during 

 most of the year the food consists of Flounders, of which 

 fish there are enough in the sea and to spare. 



Exposures that have been made from time to time 



go to prove the wilful butchery of Seals in northern seas 



for the sake of their skins. Man is, perhaps, the 



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