CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 6. PINNIPEDIA. 327 



animal is alive and dry, is pale whitish-gray, with a very slight tinge of yellow ; when just out of 

 the water and wet, the ground-color is ash ; after death, and as seen in museums, the ground- 

 color is pale yellowish-gray, the oil having penetrated the skin, and rendered the hair of a more 

 yellow hue; the hody above is clouded and marbled with blackish-gray; space round the eyes 

 and muzzle, sides of the body, all the lower parts and the feet, pale grayish, becoming nearly 

 white beneath. There is some brown on the muzzle and upper part of the tail ; whiskers mod- 

 erate, undulated; claws black, and rather strong; length from three to five feet. It inhabits 

 the northern seas generally, and is occasionally found as far south as England, France, &c, on 

 the eastern coasts of the Atlantic, and as far as the United States on the western. 



Farrington, writing to Pennant, gives the following description : " The seals are natives of our 

 coasts, and are found most frequently between Llyn, in Caernarvonshire, and the northern parts 

 of Anglesey ; they are seen often toward Carreg-y-Moelrhon, to the west of Bardsey, or Ynys 

 Enlli, and the Skerries, commonly called in the British language Ynys-y-Moelrhoniad, or Seal 

 Island. The Latin name of this amphibious animal is Phoca ; the vulgar name is sea-calf, and 

 on that account the male is called the bull, and the female the cow ; but the Celtic appellative is 

 ' Moelrhon,' from the word moel, bald, or without ears, and rhon, a spear or lance. They are ex- 

 cellent swimmers and ready divers, and are very bold when in the sea, swimming carelessly 

 enough about boats ; their dens or lodgments are in hollow rocks or caverns near the sea, but 

 out of the reach of the tide. In the summer, they will come out of the water to bask or sleep in 

 the sun, on the top of large stones or shivers of rocks, and that is the opportunity our country- 

 men take of shooting them ; if they chance to escape, they hasten toward their proper element, 

 flinging stones and dirt behind them as they scramble along, at the same time expressing their 

 fears by piteous moans ; but if they happen to be overtaken, they will make a vigorous defense 

 with their feet and teeth till they are killed." 



Dr. Borlase furnishes the following vivid description : " The seals are seen in the greatest plenty 

 on the shores of Cornwall in the months of May, June, and July. They are of different sizes, and 

 feed on most sorts of fish which they can master, and are seen searching for their prey near the 

 shore where the whistling-fish, wraws, and polacks resort. They are very swift in their proper 

 depth of water, dive like a shot, and in a trice rise at fifty yards' distance, so that weaker fishes 

 cannot avoid their tyranny except in shallow water. A person of the parish of Sennan saw not 

 long since a seal in pursuit of a mullet — that strong and swift fish ; the seal turned it to and fro 

 in deep water as a grayhound does a hare ; the mullet at last found it had no way to escape but 

 by running into shoal water ; the seal pursued, and the former, to get more surely out of danger, 

 threw itself on its side, by which means it darted into shoaler water than it could have swum in 

 with the depth of its paunch and fins, and so escaped. The seal brings her young about the 

 beginning of autumn ; our fishermen have seen two sucking their dam at the same time, as. she 

 stood in the sea in a perpendicular position. Their head in swimming is always above the water, 

 more so than that of a dog. They sleep on rocks surrounded by the sea, or on the less accessible 

 parts of cliffs left dry by the ebb of the tide, and if disturbed by any thing, take care to tumble 

 over the rocks into the sea. They are extremely watchful, and never sleep long without moving, 

 seldom longer than a minute ; then raise their heads, and if they hear or see nothing more than 

 ordinary, lie down again, and so on, raising their heads a little, and reclining them alternately in 

 about a minute's time." 



The Kassigiack, C. maculatus, inhabits the same localities as the preceding, and though some- 

 what differing in color, is believed to be a variety of the same species. 



The Atak, or Harp Seal, C. Greenland icus — the Phoque a Croissant of Buffon — has the hair 

 drier, closer to the leather, and more free from wool than that of the other species ; each hair is flat 

 and lustrous. A large brown oblique band, irregularly dentilated, commences nearly above the 

 shoulders, where it joins that of the other side, and is carried along upon the sides and up to the 

 hind-legs, becoming by degrees brighter there, and losing itself in the white of the belly ; the 

 posterior extremity approaches that of the other side at the root of the tail. Some small brown 

 spots are scattered about both in the gray of the back and in the pale part of the band. The 

 bands and spots -become more and more black with age. The females and the young have the 



