142 



CARNIVORES. 



West Indian SeaL 



neighbouring portions of the Atlantic, extending to Madeira and the Canary 

 Islands. Although but little is known of its habits in a wild state, the monk-seal 

 is very readily tamed, and is the species which used to be exhibited in England as 

 the " talking fish." 



The closely-allied West Indian seal is of nearly the same colour 

 as the monk-seal in the adult state, but the young are of a deep 

 glossy black. This species is interesting from its restricted distribution, and the 

 prospect of its impending extermination. Although discovered as far back as the 

 year 1494 by the flotilla of Columbus, when cruising in the West Indies, this seal, 

 up to the year 1883, was represented in scientific collections only by a single skin 

 sent to the British Museum in 1846 by Mr. P. H. Gosse. In the year 1687, when 

 Sir Hans Sloane visited the Bahamas, these seals were extraordinarily abundant, 

 the sealers sometimes killing as many as a hundred in a single night. In less than 

 two centuries they had, however, become exterminated from most of their former 

 haunts, although some were known to remain on the rocky islands of Pedro Keys, 

 to the southward of Jamaica. In 1886, as Mr. F. A. Lucas tells us, a vessel visited 

 three small islands lying between Yucatan and Florida, known as the Triangles, 

 with the hope of finding a colony of these seals. In this hope the expedition was 

 not disappointed, upwards of forty specimens being secured before the vessel was 

 compelled to put back from stress of weather. We are not told how many of these 

 seals were then remaining on the islands. 



It has been already mentioned that the seals of this group have the first and 

 fifth toes of the hind-feet much longer than the others, and since this is a character 

 which they possess in common with the eared seals, it is interesting to learn that 

 the West Indian seal has the power of bringing the hind-feet forwards to a certain 

 extent when on land by curving the body upwards. When straightening itself 

 the creature pitches ahead on its breast, advancing about a foot by the operation. 



The Leopaud-Seal. 



Genus Ogmorhinus. 



The leopard-seal (Ogmorhinus leptonyx) may be taken as the best known 



representative of four genera 

 confined to the Southern 

 and Antarctic Seas, and 

 each containing but a single 

 species. These seals differ 

 from the monk - seal by 

 certain characters of their 

 skulls, and are likewise dis- 

 tinguished from that species 

 and from one another by the 

 form of their cheek-teeth. 

 The leopard-seal or, as it is often called, the sea-leopard is distinguished by 

 the great length of its skull, and by the cheek-teeth consisting of three large and 



SKULL OF LEOPARD-SEAL. 



