The Zoologist— Februarv, 1874. 3877 



with seals was made at Roundstone, in Conueraara, in July, 1839, 

 where I had abundant opportunity of seeing them at home: the date 

 seems to take me back into the dim ages of remote antiquity, but 

 memory still reproduces with the utmost clearness the facts then 

 observed. Nothing can be more smooth and comfortable than the 

 manner in which a seal slides or glides or launches himself into 

 the water ; it seems the result of gravitation only, and often inde- 

 pendent of muscular exertion ; but when he leaves the water these 

 conditions are exactly reversed ; then his efforts are most laborious, 

 and he reminds us of a man jumpiug in a sack ; his progress con- 

 sists of a series of spasmodic and ineffectual jerks, which he fondly 

 mistakes for leaps : he verifies most minutely Virgil's celebrated 



apothegm : — 



"Facilis descensus pelagi. 



Sed revocare gradum superasqtue evadere ad auras 

 Hoc opus, hie labor est." 



How often have our moralists applied this passage to poor man's 

 facilities for transgression and the difficulty of his return to recti- 

 tude ; but with the alteration of a single word, the seal gives us a 

 far more apt illustration of the poet's meaning. Revenons a nos 

 vioutons ; I must put Virgil on the shelf and return to my denizens. 

 The moment a seal has fairly launched himself in the water, he 

 turns over on his back, and swims in this reversed position : 

 incredible as it may appear, he will be quite willing at any time of 

 the day to verify this at Brighton, and will convince the most 

 sceptical of the truth of ray assertion. Why is this ? wherefore 

 should a seal swim on his back with his stomach uppermost? 

 Let us speculate a moment. If we attentively study the position 

 of his eyes, we shall see that they are placed so as to look upwards 

 with the greatest ease, and thus apprise him of all dangers when 

 on land or on ice. Such enemies as man and the white bear, both 

 of whom are ever on the look out for him, are thus readily per- 

 ceived, and often by a timely movement avoided. When in the 

 sea it is different; his object then is to feed; men and bears do 

 not pursue him so incessantly or so availingly in the deep; but 

 his food swims beneath him, and to be eaten must be caught, arid 

 to be caught must be seen. The seal has no means of dredging 

 the sea ; he must see and pursue each individual fish on which he 

 desires to feed. The eyes of a seal are placed in the best possible 

 position for perceiving men and bears when on land and ice and 



SECOND SERIES — VOL. IX. L 



