1904.] GREY SEAL AT VARIOUS STAGES OF GROWTH. 377 



The type of dark female had the usual demarcation of grey upper 

 parts and whitish under parts, but the whole is so sufiused with 

 ashy grey and black spots and blotches that the whole pelage 

 appears to be blackish grey. The muzzle is dark, and the crown, 

 as usual, pale grey. 



If there is one external characteristic which marks out the Grey 

 Seal for siiperficial identification, it is the pale-grey crown of the 

 head. This feature is present in nearly every example of both 

 male and female of whatever type, and, even when they were 

 swimming in the sea at a distance of half a mile, I have been able 

 with certainty to distinguish this Seal from the Common Seal, the 

 head of which always looks black, buUety, and glistening. 



In adults the mystacial bristles are abundant, very stiff, and 

 curiously crenulated, which gives to certain old males a rather 

 " walrusy " look. The snout is unusually elongated, especially in 

 the old male, whilst the muzzle is very broad and fleshy, with the nose 

 aquiline. These characteristics are moi-e subdued in the female, and 

 " her eyes have a more benevolent expression. The eyes of the old 

 male are somewhat sunk, and, when angry, he has, like the big 

 carnivora, a most ferocious expression. In the fore feet the two 

 first toes are of equal length and have large nails, whilst the hind 

 feet are deeply emarginated, the outer toes forming long fingers 

 and only possessing small nails. In very old males these nails 

 become almost completely worn away, and the animals do not 

 seem capable of renewing them. The length of adult males varies 

 from 7 1 to 10 feet. From the measurements taken by myself of 

 27 adult males, I find 8 feet to 8 feet 6 inches to be the common 

 length. 9 feet 6 inches is that of the largest animal I have 

 handled ; bu.t I have little doubt that monsters of 10 feet and even 

 over are sometimes to be found, and I think that I once shot and 

 lost one as large as this. The statement that males of 12 and 13 

 feet have been captured must be accepted with reservation, and it 

 must be recollected that the sportsman generally measures his seal 

 from the nose to the end of the hind flippers, and not from the 

 nose to the end of the tail, as he should do. The adult males vai-y 

 a good deal in weight, as some of them are long, lanky-looking 

 creatures, and others very short for their size and thickset. 



A big male shot by Sir Reginald Cathcart on South Uist 

 weighed 50 stone, and in the ' Vertebrate Fauna of Argyll and 

 and the Inner Hebrides,' Harvie- Brown and Buckley state: — 

 " Mr. Henry Evans records the weight of one killed at 48 stones,. 

 and he has known them to reach 9 feet in length. We ourselves, 

 we believe, have seen specimens exceeding this size in the Outer 

 Hebrides. One shot by Mr. M'NeiU, Jun., of Canna, as he 

 assured us, weighed 45 stones 5 lbs., and was the largest ever 

 seen or recorded there (1881)." 



Dr. Edmonston, who had a long experience of these Seals in 

 Shetland, gives the weight as 639 pounds. The largest male he- 

 examined was " 8 feet from the muzzle to end of tail; girth round 



