14 SEALS OF THE SHETLAND ISLANDS. 



into the water, when a whale is too near a boat, and danger 

 is apprehended from him, he is observed suddenly to disap- 

 pear. On these occasions he is likely in quest of his mate, 

 and believing, by the scent of the articles thrown overboard, 

 that she is near him, he sinks immediately into the depths, 

 where, rather than on the surface, he has been accustomed 

 to find her. 



Seals also are observed to abandon the place where the 

 blood of any of their species has been shed — probably for 

 the same reason that a bullock shuns the shambles. It has 

 been said that when several seals are resting on a rock, some 

 one of their number acts as sentinel ; but this result of dis- 

 cipline or self-denial I cannot say I have seen — w Sauve 

 qui peut " is, I think, rather the watch- word. The herring- 

 gull is their most vigilant vidette at all seasons, as he is of 

 every other kind of our game. The seal he loves especial- 

 ly to take under his wing, and he is the most vexatious 

 interruption to the sportsman. 



The voice is plaintive, capable of considerable modula- 

 tion, and in both species of seal is nearly the same, not un- 

 like the howl of a dog lamenting his master's absence, and 

 expressed by the syllable oo, much prolonged. We seldom 

 have the pleasure of listening to the music of the old ones — 

 on the rocks they sometimes growl like bears in chorus against 

 each other, but the young of the Great Seal in the caves 

 often make the rocks re-echo to their symphonies, and thus 

 by imprudent babbling betray their presence to the hunter. 

 When irritated, or when alarmed, they utter a sharp hiss 

 like the sound of a sheep in similar circumstances, which, 

 when swimming, becomes to their companions a signal of 

 danger, and is responded to instantaneously by a general 

 plunge-dive. 



They bite severely, giving effect to their hold by swinging 



