16 SEALS OF THE SHETLAND ISLANDS. 



should think, be permanent varieties. I have noticed a fe- 

 male barbata near Bornholm in the Baltic, and a vitulina 

 caught on the Pomeranian shore. 



They are very voracious, and the stomach is large, yet 

 they are capable of enduring long abstinence. The fat or 

 blubber that envelopes them, besides aiding in resisting 

 cold and pressure, and lessening specific gravity, seems ob- 

 viously intended as a supplemental source of nourishment to 

 an animal that must often be subject to considerable intervals 

 of want of food and exhausting exertion. Here, also, we 

 may perceive one use of the great length of the intestines, 

 which, by long detaining the food, facilitates the absorp- 

 tion of all the nourishment from it. The great secretion 

 of fat may also act in the purification of the blood by ab- 

 stracting carbon from it. As in the whales, there is no very 

 distinct division between the blubber and the skin, but the 

 one passes insensibly into the other, so that there is consi- 

 derable difficulty in accurately flaying them. The females 

 are always in better plight than the males, unless shortly 

 after parturition, when, in a few days only, they become 

 very lean. The males also at the same season become lean, 

 but they very quickly fatten again. 



The milk is very thick ; tastes saltish and a little fishy ; 

 and is much better adapted for cheese than for butter, from 

 containing more curd than cream. 



No account exists in Shetland, I believe, of the Grampus 

 or Cachalot preying on seals, although both kinds of whales, 

 especially the former, are sometimes seen ; but opinions to 

 this effect are held by some in Orkney. The flesh of both 

 species of seal was formerly eaten by the peasantry, of which 

 I even remember an instance ; the practice is now, however, 

 discontinued. The flesh of the barbata, which was chiefly 

 used, is coarser grained, and rather darker in the colour than 



