OUR PETS. 55 



The fate of one was tragic. On one of his hunting 

 expeditions he had apparently roamed beyond the limits 

 of his usual haunts, and lost his way in a snowstorm. 

 Landing several miles from home, he was making for 

 the nearest fisherman's hut, when he was met by some 

 thoughtless lads, who knocked him on the head, con- 

 verted his blubber into oil, and his skin into rivlins — 

 the vernacular for a kind of moccasin made of untanned 

 hide. When taxed with the murder of our pet, the 

 rascals pretended they thought it was a wild selkie 

 driven on shore by stress of weather. The other seal, 

 after thriving splendidly, and growing fast and fat, 

 suddenly refused food, got dull, would scarcely stay a 

 minute in the sea, which had formerly been his delight, 

 and after pining away for three weeks, died. A post- 

 mortem examination discovered a considerable quantity 

 of gravel in his stomach, which there could be no doubt 

 had been the cause of death. He had swallowed it 

 with his food, which had been thoughtlessly thrown on 

 the floor of his house. We were very sorry when we 

 lost our pet seals, for they were intelligent, gentle, and 

 affectionate creatures, and albeit their movements on 

 land were ungainly, it was delightful and refreshing to 

 see them disporting themselves in their native element. 

 And their eyes ! such eyes ! they were simply the love- 

 liest I ever saw in any creature — large, dark, liquid, 

 and lustrous, with a wistful, pleading, melancholy 

 expression that went far to justify the local legend 

 which represents them as a certain class of fallen spirits 

 in metempsychosis, enduring a mitigated punishment 



