HABITS OF SEALS. 15 



their bodies loose from the ground. They often play with 

 their prey after catching and disabling it, as a cat does with 

 a mouse. Before eating a fish, if it be a large one, they 

 skin it by holding it firmly between the fore-paws and 

 tearing off the skin in shreds with their teeth. They have 

 as much use of their fore-paws as an ape has of his hands 

 —lying on the rocks, they may be often seen scratching 

 themselves with them. I have never observed pediculi or 

 other vermin on their skins. They eat under water as well 

 as above, smacking like a hog — indeed, they are rather sea- 

 hogs, than sea-dogs : — they hardly appear to masticate, but 

 tear off mouthfuls and swallow them, well seasoned with 

 essence of brine. They are never observed to feed on land 

 in the wild state. They are thought by some to prey on sea- 

 fowl, pulling them under water and drowning them (as is 

 the usual practice of the otter, who seems to prefer fowl to 

 fish, and is perhaps amphibious more by necessity than 

 choice) ; — but I doubt this. They will, however, eat flesh in 

 captivity, as occurred in the case of a young Haff-fish, who 

 thereby disfigured the only specimen of Greenland seal 

 known to have occurred on this coast, and whose corpse 

 unluckily happened to be lying in the same apartment. 

 The Greenland Seal, however, is often seen to seize birds 

 in the water, and, when kept on board the whalers, is fed 

 chiefly, I believe, on fulmars. 



Seals here, as well as every where else, are known to be 

 fond of salmon and trout, and in quest of them will enter 

 rivers and lakes near the sea. In Shetland I have known 

 a few instances of the vitulina (none of the barbata) enter- 

 ing a lake through a rivulet falling into the sea ; but from 

 choice they seldom remain long in fresh water. Such fresh- 

 water sailors as the seals that inhabit Lake Baikal and the 

 Bothnian Gulf, if they are not distinct species, must, I 



