238 NATURAL HISTOEY. 



delicate in taste, and most highly prized as a culinary dainty. Unlike the other Seals, it has 

 " atluk," but depends on broken places in the ice. It is generally found among loose ice and breakin 

 up floes. Its great size, occasionally ten feet long, and bulky body in proportion, is its import: 

 feature. It is of a tawny colour, darker above, and the young is supposed to be of & lighter hue. 



THE GREY SEAL.* Its range is a limited one compared with that of the last. It frequents 

 British coasts, especially Ireland and the Hebrides, and from the Scandinavian coast it stretches tow; 

 and round the southern shore of Greenland. It also is of enormous size. One old male, shot in 186 

 at the Eagle Rock, Connemara, Mr. A. G. More states, weighed nearly 400 Ibs., was eight feet lo: 

 and had a girth of body over five feet. Its colour is yellowish-grey, lighter beneath, with varied d 

 grey spots and blotches. Fabricius first described it, and the Swede Professor Nilsson ranked it as 

 separate genus, the distinguishing characters depending on the form of its skull and molar teeth, sm; 

 brain-case, and large nasal orifice, the muzzle being deep and obliquely truncated. To Mr. Ball, of Dubli 

 we are indebted for a tolerably good account of its habits and other particulars, he having shown it 

 be the same as Donovan's Orkney Seal, the so-called Ph. barbata. In bringing the matter before t' 

 British Association in 1836, Professor Nilsson recognised it as his H. griseus, the same animal describ 

 by Fabricius in 1790. On the British coasts it breeds in October and November, though Nilsson 

 asserts that on the Swedish coasts it breeds in February, a contradiction hitherto not clearly explained. 

 A male and female from Wales were exhibited in the Zoological Gardens in 1871, and Mr. Bartlett 

 particularly noted that it was both greedy and savage as compared with the other Seals under his 

 charge. This accords with Mr. Ball's account, who found it insusceptible of domestication ; this he 

 attributed to its small brain relatively to the other Seals. At the mouth of a cave at Howth he was 

 fortunate in harpooning one. Some state that they are solitary in their habits, others that they 

 associate in pairs, and still others that they congregate in groups of ten or a dozen. At all events, they 

 select such remote and unfrequented situations that it is no very easy matter to follow them. They 

 are not so lively, watchful, or timid as the Common Seal. Those of the county Galway are said to 

 utter most dismal howls in chorus. Their young they leave on the exposed barren rocks, and sue 

 them every tide for the space of a fortnight. When born, they are of a dull yellowish- white, in a f< 

 weeks becoming darker, and by degrees gaining their greyish coat. Under the name of Black Se 

 probably this species, an animal (besides the Common Seal) occasionally frequents the Bay of 

 Andrews and the Tay mouth, where it is very destructive to fish and nets. 



THE MONK SEAL.f Who has not heard or seen something of the " wonderful learned tal 

 fish/' if only from placard or fanciful sketch hung outside the showman's caravan, with the occasional 

 attractive announcement that " the amphibious creature has the sense of hearing in its nostrils, and 

 bearing the impression of five fingers ? " A visit soon dispels the illusion, as the imploring look of 

 hungry but bright-eyed Seal in a tub of water greets the sight. These " talking fish " generally belo: 

 to this species, and have often been exhibited in Britain and on the Continent. A full-grov 

 animal reaches between seven and eight feet long, and upwards. It is dark-brown mixed with gre; 

 above, and whitish below, and has short hair and small claws. It entirely differs from all the pre- 

 ceding in being confined to the Mediterranean and Black Seas, and the African coasts neighbouring 

 Madeira and the Canaries. Buffon's classic description of the White-bellied Seal refers to this species, 

 and Pennant names it the Pied Seal. Its geographical limits are as above stated, unless it be the 

 same as a Seal from Jamaica, which Gray terms M. tropicalis, in which case it would traverse the 

 Atlantic, a fact that is more than doubtful. Their mild disposition and teachable nature have led to 

 their frequent exhibition. They go through many tricks, utter sounds construed into speech, present 

 the fore-paw to " shake hands," kiss the visitor when desired, obey other trifling commands, and allow 

 fchemselves to be freely handled. Little is known as to its times of breeding and rearing of young, 

 though its habits in a state of nature are believed to be very similar to those of the Seal tribe generally. 



THE CRESTED, OR BLADDER-NOSE SEAL.| The geographical range of this animal agrees best 

 with that of the Common Seal, that is, it sweeps along the North American coast from Florida right 

 up into Baffin's Bay, thence to the south coasts of Greenland, across the North Atlantic, skirting 

 Britain and Scandinavia, to Spitzbergen. Named from the remarkable prominence of the front upper 

 part of the head, this is one of the largest and most powerful of the Northern Seals. Certainly it 

 * Halichcerus gryphus. f Monackus albiventer. J Cystophora cristata. 



