GREAT SEAE. 
Eff. Quad. N° 382. 
Phoca Barbata, Faun. Green!. N° 9.—Urkfuk. Greent. 
Lakktak, Hit, Kamt/chatka, 420.—Lev. Mus, 
NEAL. With long pellucid white whifkers with curled points : 
back arched : black hairs, very deciduous, and thinly difperfed 
ever a thick fkin, which in fummer is almoft naked: teeth like the 
common Seal: fore feet like the human hand; middle toe the 
longeft ; thumb fhort: length more than twelve feet. 
The Greenlanders cut out of the fkin of this fpecies thongs and 
lines, a finger thick, for the Seal-fifhery. Its flefh is white as veal,, 
and efteemed the moft delicate of any: has plenty of lard, but does 
not yield much oil. The fkins of the young are fometimes ufed to 
lie on. 
It inhabits the high fea about Greenland; is a timid fpecies, and 
ufually refts on the floating ice, and very feldom the fixed. Breeds. 
in the earlieft fpring,. or about the month of March, and brings forth: 
a fingle young on the ice, ufually among the iflands; for at that 
feafon it approaches a little nearer to the land. ‘The great old ones | 
~ £{wim very flowly. 
In the feas of the north of Scotland is found a Seal twelve feet long. 
A gentleman of my acquaintance fhot one of that fize on the coaft 
of Sutherland ; but made no particular remarks on it. A young one, 
feven feet and half long, was fhewn in London fome years ago, which 
had not arrived at maturity enough even to have fcarcely any teeth*: 
yet the common Seals have them complete before they attain the fize 
of fix feet, their utmoft growth. 
A fpecies larger than an Ox, found in the Kamt/chatkan feas from 
56 to 64 north latitude, called by the natives Lachtakt. They weighed. 
® Ph. Tranf, Abr. ix, 74. tab, v. xlvii. 1206 + Nov. Com. Petrop. ii. 290. 
eight 
159 
73. GREaT. 
