34 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



In earlier days the Grey Seal was probably common 

 around Scotland, but so few had its numbers become through 

 continual slaughter, that in 1914 the Grey Seals Protection 

 Bill was passed, protecting it during a close season from 

 1st October and 15th December. 



The Secretary for Scotland's answer to part of the 

 question was a simple one. Fortunately the 1914 Act did 

 not lapse when its period of five years had run, for Parlia- 

 ment wisely renewed it for another period. But what of 

 the definite allegation that clubbing had begun again ? 

 Haskeir is an out-of-the-way island, remote from general 

 sources of information, but definite efforts have been made 

 to discover whether there is any foundation for the allega- 

 tion. No evidence of clubbing of Seals is furnished by Mr 

 Hesketh Pritchard, and in an interesting report sent to 

 the Fishery Board for Scotland on 27th February 1922, for 

 a copy of which we are indebted to the Chairman, Mr David 

 T. Jones, we read : " I learn from a lighthouse keeper who 

 was stationed at Monach Lighthouse for two years, that 

 no Grey Seals were clubbed on these rocks. Very few Seals 

 were ever observed to land on Haskeir, and from the 

 formation of the rocks it would be impossible to approach 

 without disturbing any Seals there." 



The difficulty has been that the clubbing has always 

 taken place during the breeding season, when the young lie 

 defenceless on the shore above high-water mark, and are 

 accompanied by their dams. Can it be that the once famous 

 breeding colony of Grey Seals on Haskeir has almost 

 disappeared ? It has indeed been sadly reduced, but 

 Mr Pritchard definitely states that in recent years, before 

 the 1914 Act, "an annual average of at least thirty or forty 

 Seals are destroyed on Haskeir alone." 



The only remedy to save this magnificent creature from 

 the danger of extermination — and how fine a creature it is 

 may be judged from the Scottish group exhibited in the 

 Natural History Department of the Royal Scottish Museum 

 — is strict protection. But we would go further than the 

 Act of 1914, and since breeding Grey Seals have been 

 observed ashore during September, would suggest that when 



