CHAPTER XVIII. 



THE SEAL : AND THE SEAL-FISHERY. 



|| HE seals and walruses are now included among 

 the Carnivora, and form a section which 

 zoologists call Pinnigrada or Pinnipedia. 

 This section is subdivided into the two well- 

 known families of the Seals (Phocidce) and Walruses 

 (Trichecidce). 



Almost everybody, we imagine, is familiar with the 

 SEAL, and can call up to "the mind's eye" a distinct picture 

 of its semi-quadrupedal, semi-piscine body. Horace, in 

 an often-quoted passage, imputes it as a fault to the painter 

 if he should delineate the figure of a beautiful woman as 

 terminating in a fish's tail, 



" Ut turpiter atrum 

 Desinat in piscera mulier formosa superne." 



But Nature, in creating the seal, has come very near to 

 incurring the poet's censure. The fore part of its body is 

 that of a mammal, the hind part that of a fish, except 

 that it resembles the quadrupeds in the possession of two 

 posterior limbs. These, however, are placed far back, 

 their axis being nearly coincident with that of the body. 

 As they are partly included in the general integument, 

 their position renders them efficacious in facilitating the 





