1875. ] MR. J. W. CLARK ON EARED SEALS. 655 
Flinders * gives a vast number of notices respecting the Seals he 
found on the‘different islands in the Strait. He seems to have taken 
a naturalist’s and not a speculator’s interest in them. 
Feb. 16, 1798.—Large Hair-Seals were met with on Battery 
Island—a rock in the channel between Cape-Barren Island and the 
southern islands. The rocks of Clarke’s Island “ were also frequented 
by hair-seals ; and some of them (the old males) were of an enormous 
size and extraordinary power. I levelled my gun at one, which was 
sitting on the top of a rock with his nose extended up towards the 
sun, and struck him with three musket-balls. He rolled over, and 
plunged into the water; but in less than half an hour had taken 
his former station and attitude. On firing again, a stream of blood 
spouted forth from his breast to some yards distance, and he fell 
back senseless. On examination, the six balls were found lodged 
in his breast ; and one, which had occasioned his death, had pierced 
the heart : his weight was equal to that of a common ox”’ (vol. i. p. 
CXXviii). 
On Cone Point “‘ the number of seals exceeded every thing we had, 
any of us, before witnessed ; and they were smaller, and of a different 
species from those which frequented Armstrong’s Channel. Instead 
of the bull-dog nose, and thinly set, sandy hair, these had sharp- 
pointed noses, and the general colour of the hair approached to a 
black: but.the tips were of a silver-grey, and underneath was a fine, 
whitish, thick fur. The commotion excited by our presence, in this 
assemblage of several thousand timid animals, was very “interesting 
to me, who knew little of their manners. The young cubs huddled 
together in the holes of the rocks, and moaned piteously; those 
more advanced scampered and rolled down to the water, with their 
mothers; whilst some of the old males stood up in defence of their 
families, until the terror of the sailors’ bludgeons became too strong 
to be resisted. Those who have seen a farm-yard, well stocked 
with pigs, calves, sheep, oxen, and with two or three litters of 
puppies, with their mothers, in it, and have heard them all in tumult 
together, may form a good idea of the confused noise of the seals at 
Cone Point. The sailors killed as many of these harmless and not 
unamiable creatures as they were able to skin during the time 
necessary for me to take the requisite angles; and we then left the 
poor affrighted multitude to recover from the effect of our inauspi- 
cious visit’ (p. exxix.). 
“The hair-seal appears to frequent the sheltered beaches, points, 
and rocks: whilst the rocks and rocky points exposed to the buf- 
fettings of the waves are preferred by the handsomer and superior 
species, which never condescends to the effeminacy of a beach. A 
point or island will not be greatly resorted to by these animals, 
unless it slope gradually to the water, and the shore be, as we term 
it, steep to. This is the case with the islet lying off Cape Barren, 
* A Voyage to Terra Australis, in the years 1801, 1802, and 1803, by Mat- 
thew Flinders (2 vols. 4to, London, 1814). The introduction, paged in Roman 
numerals, contains an excellent account of the previous explorations of himself 
and others. 
Proc. Zoou. Soc.—1875, No. XLII. 42 
