3204 THE ZooLOGIST—SEPTEMBER, 1872. 
seal, for Mr. L. Lloyd says (I believe in his ‘Game Birds and Wild 
Fowl of Norway and Sweden,’ but I have not the book to refer to) 
that the cub of the common species, whilst still in its mother’s 
womb, casts this woolly covering; and when ushered into the 
world has acquired its second or proper dress. If this is the case, 
it fully accounts for the cub being able to bear immersion from the 
hour of its birth. The seal, if lying undisturbed and at rest, can 
remain for hours without coming to the surface to breathe.* It is 
possible that the large seal, which for so many years haunted the 
Long-sand, may have been the gray seal of the Northern seas, 
Phoca Gryphus. That examples of the Phocide, besides the 
common species, do occasionally wander to our coast, is not 
improbable. ‘The small arctic seal (Phoca hispida), known as the 
ringed or marbled seal, has occurred on the coast of Norfolk: it has 
also been taken in the Channel and off the French seaboard. 
Kittiwake Gull.—July 2nd. This afternoon we passed through 
a flock of kittiwakes, beating for food at the mouth of the Humber, 
between the ‘Bull’ and ‘ Newsand’ light-ships, where there is 
always much floating matter washing to and fro with the tides. 
They were all in the plumage of the second and third summer, and 
I saw no adults: some had the tail banded at the tip, but more or 
less faded; others were nearly adult, excepting the dark markings 
on the false wing and primary coverts. 
Common Scoter.—July 2nd. This evening, in running up the 
Lincolnshire coast from the Humber to the Wash, we observed, 
especially off the Haile Sands, large flocks of scoters flying from 
the shallow water in shore out to sea. Some flocks contained one 
hundred to one hundred and fifty birds; others not more than twenty: 
they looked, and 1 thought them, adult; but on a nearer inspection 
thought otherwise. Two flocks examined with a strong binocular, 
and which passed within long gunshot of the yacht, were composed 
of nearly equal numbers of males and females: the latter, however, 
* Mr. St. John, in his ‘Natural History and Sport in Moray,’ p. 287, says: “I 
was assured by a man, who was constantly in pursuit of seals, that one day having 
found a very young one left by its mother on the rocks, near Lossiemouth, he put it 
into a deep round hole full of water left by the receding tide. For two hours, during 
which he waited, expecting to see the old female come in with the flow of the tide, 
the little animal remained, as he expressed it, ‘like a stone’ at the bottom of the 
water, without moving or coming to the surface to breathe. He then took it out, 
and found it as well and lively as ever; and on turning it loose into the sea it at 
once began swimming about with some other young ones.” 
