Page 792. 
Page 793. 
426 POSSIBLE CAUSE OF DEATH IN A YOUNG SEAL. 
69. NOTE ON THE POSSIBLE CAUSE OF DEATH IN A 
YOUNG SEAL.* 
On October 1, 1877, Mr. G. Mellin presented to the Society a 
female Common Seal (Phoca vitulina), which died on the 9th of the 
same month. He obtained it from the Scilly Islands on September 
27th, when it had attached to it the rudiments of the umbilical cord, 
which dropped off on the 30th, three days later. It must therefore 
have been born only a few days. When in the Society’s Gardens it 
sucked milk freely from a baby-feeding bottle, and exhibited no 
pathological symptoms. As it did not take kindly to the water, it 
remained almost entirely on land. 
On post-mortem examination it was found to be three feet two 
inches in length from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail, along 
the back. The lungs were of a dark red colour, collapsed, containing 
scarcely any air, and scarcely floating in water, otherwise also resemb- 
ling those of a suffocated new-born child. The kidneys were dark on 
section being made in the cortical portions, and quite white at the 
apices of the cones. 
It is the heart which was peculiar, in that neither the ductus 
arteriosus nor the foramen ovale was obliterated, and they appeared 
to be as patent as they could ever have been in foetal life. The 
question then suggests itself as to whether the animal suffered from 
cyanosis, of which it died, or whether in the Pinnipedia the semi- 
foetal circulation continues for longer after birth than in other mam- 
mals. 
The creature having lived for nine days in the Society’s Gardens, 
and having lost the umbilical rudiment a day before it arrived, was 
probably about a fortnight old when it died, and ought, according to 
analogy with the human infant, to have lost all traces of the foetal 
cardiac peculiarities; whereas the ductus arteriosus and the foramen 
ovale were not even beginning to be obliterated. This can hardly 
have been otherwise than pathological, which leads me to the inference 
that it died morbidly cyanotic, perhaps because it lacked its normal 
maternal milk, and so was not in a condition to repair its foetal imper- 
fections. 
* “Proceedings of the Zoological Society,” 1877, pp. 792-3. Read, Nov. 20, 
1877. 
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