254 Selous: Observations en the Grey Seal. 
where it was, on the approach of its mother, for its coat before 
then had long seemed perfectly dry. 
From now on, I continued to watch and wait, and during the 
early morning light (having no watch I cannot say what o’clock 
it was), another feeding of this same baby seal took place. 
This last was all in the swirl and swell of the tide, the waves 
washing over the rock on which the mother lay, and often 
bumping her several feet out of place. As forthe calf, it had 
often almost to swim, whilst imbibing, and once the dug it 
sucked had the salt wave around or upon it. This time it had 
a still greater climb, to get to its mother, or, rather, to its place, 
before she came there, and only managed it by a drop into the 
sea, off the rock’s edge, which I should never have thought it 
was equal to. Then, for quite a long time, it swam about, 
first in the sea-pool, and then, as the tide rose and overflowed it, 
in the actual sea, climbing, now and again, for a little way, up 
on the rock, and then going back again. Here, then, is an 
actual demonstration that swimming in this species is instinc- 
tive, and that the young are not taught by their parents, for 
this one was scarce twenty-four hours old, and (unless we 
suppose that its mother had taken it out to sea whilst I slept), 
this was the first time that it had come down to the sea, or the 
sea had come up to it, since its birth.* 
Finally the last suckling up to now, has taken place only 
some fifteen or twenty minutes ago. I should think it must be 
mid-day. The mother this time, came right up on the rock, 
close to where the young one was lying, and getting into posi- 
tion upon her side, stomach towards me, gave me a splendid 
view, at less, perhaps, than twelve paces distant. The thing 
was very interesting, for the day-old calf was not an expert, 
and one might almost say that though swimming lessons for 
young Seals are not necessary, sucking lessons are. The calf 
did not seem to know with exactitude where the dugs were, 
and, leaving the right place, was putting its head too far 
upwards, when the mother, several times, gently flicked its 
nose with her flipper—using the claws but not so as to hurt it 
at all—and, in this way, got it back into position. Again, 
after a little interval, she achieved the same result through 
this means, in combination with a nice placing of the dug, 
through the shifting and twitching of her large expanded belly. 
Thus, though the young one, when it found and got hold of 
the dug, knew how to suck it, it certainly received and seemed, 
to a certain extent, to require assistance in the suckling, itself, 
*Yet anyone sufficiently low-down can surprise and club these young 
Seals, for they often lie far from the sea, and do not sufficiently understand 
escaping. It is to be hoped that their present protection may be made per- 
manent, or the direct encouragement which has hitherto been given to their 
slaughter in the Scilly Isles will soon exterminate the species there. 
Naturalist, 
