THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



porary resting-place was rapidly melting away. 

 When a large individual of the Phoca proboscklea 

 or Phoca leoninn is thus borne off to a distance 

 from its native shore, it is compelled to return for 

 rest to its floating abode, after it has made its 

 daily excursions in quest of the fishes or squids 

 that constitute its food. It is thus brought by 

 the iceberg into the latitudes of the Cape, and 

 perhaps further north, before the berg has melted 

 away. Then the poor seal is compelled to swim as 

 long as strength endures; and in such a predica- 

 ment I imagine the creature was that Mr. Sartoris 

 saw rapidly approaching the Dsedahis from before 

 the beam, scanning, probably, its capabilities as 

 a resting place, as it paddled its long stiff body 

 past the ship. In so doing, it would raise a head 

 of the form and colour described and delineated by 

 Captain M'Quhae, supported on a neck also of the 

 diameter given; the thick neck passing into an 

 inflexible trunk, the longer and coarser hair on the 

 upper part of which would give rise to the idea, 

 especially if the species were the Phoca, leoninn, 

 explained by the similes above cited. The organs 

 of locomotion would be out of sight. The pec- 

 toral fins being set on very low down, as in my 

 sketch, the chief impelling force would be the 

 action of the deeper immersed terminal fins and 

 tail, which would create a long eddy, readily mis- 

 takeable, by one looking at the strange phenome- 

 non with a sea-serpent in his mind's eye, for an 

 indefinite prolongation of the body. 



"It is very probable, that not one on board the 

 Dsedalus ever before beheld a gigantic seal freely 

 swimming in the open ocean. Entering unex- 

 pectedly from that vast and commonly blank 

 desert of waters, it would be a strange and ex- 

 citing spectacle, and might well be interpreted as 

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