20 ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 



every moment more intensely exciting, not to say 

 amusing, to behold. Varying very materially in size, 

 from six and seven feet long down to three or four, they 

 appeared to be of two kinds. * Some, stretched out 

 upon the bare dry sand, were basking, motionless, in 

 evident repose ; while others were performing the very 

 drollest antics, pursuing one another in playful mood 

 propelling their unwieldy bodies in a sort of snake-like 

 manner, with a peculiar undulatory movement of the 

 tail, their shining forms flashing in the clear sunlight 

 as they disported themselves in gieesome merriment on 

 the warm dry sand. Some, gliding off the bank, dived 

 invisibly away; while others, reappearing from the 

 element at different points, went shuffling along at the 

 edge of the water. As I grasped my rifle with the 

 eagerness of hope, the seathunter gravely hinted that 

 our best precautions woul^Bas unavailing as my own 

 aspirations, as the seals . 115011 this bank were always 

 extremely wild, being so often scared by the passage to 

 and fro of vessels in the Firth. And true enough ; 

 for as our nearer approach seemed at first to increase 

 at once the life, the interest, and the reality of the 

 scene, and these extraordinary animals loomed more 

 distinctly upon the sight, they all at once, as though 

 the act was preconcerted, in the twinkling of an eye, 



* The common seal (Phoca vitulina), and the Greenland or 

 harp seal (P. Greenlandica). 



