604 CARNIVORA 
Two species of seals only are met with regularly on the British 
coasts, the Common Seal and the Gray Seal. The former (Fig. 
277) is a constant resident in all suitable localities round the 
Scottish, Irish, and English coasts, from which it has not been 
driven away by the molestations of man. Although, naturally, 
the most secluded and out-of-the-way spots are selected as their 
habitual dwelling-places, there are few localities where they may 
not be occasionally met with. Within the writers’ knowledge one 
was seen not many years ago lying on the shingly beach at so 
populous a place as Brighton, and another was caught in the river 
Welland, near Stamford, 30 miles from the sea. They frequent 
bays, inlets, and estuaries, and are often seen on sandbanks or 
mudflats left dry at low tide, and, unlike some of their congeners, 
are not found on the ice-floes of the open sea, nor, though 
gregarious, are very large numbers ever seen in one spot. The 
young are produced at the end of May or beginning of June. 
They feed chiefly on fish, and the destruction they occasion among 
salmon is well known to Scottish fishermen. The Common Seal is 
widely distributed, being found not only on the European and 
American coasts bordering the Atlantic Ocean, but also in the 
North Pacific. It is from 4 to 5 feet in length, and variable in 
colour, though usually yellowish-gray, with irregular spots of dark 
brown or black above and yellowish-white beneath. The Gray 
Seal (Halichwrus grypus) is of considerably larger size, the males 
attaining when fully adult a length of 8 feet from nose to end of 
hind feet. It is of a yellowish-gray colour, lighter beneath, and 
with dark gray spots or blotches, but, like most other Seals, is 
liable to great variations of colour according to age. This species 
appears to be restricted to the North Atlantic, having been rarely 
seen on the American coasts, but not farther south than Nova 
Scotia ; it is chiefly met with on the coasts of Ireland, England, 
Scotland, Norway, and Sweden, including the Baltic and Gulf of 
Bothnia, and Iceland, though it does not appear to range farther 
north. It is apparently not migratory, and its favourite breeding 
places are rocky islands; the young being born in the end of 
September or beginning of October. 
Subfamily Monaehinze.—Incisors 2. Cheek-teeth two-rooted, 
except the first. On the hind feet the first and fifth toes greatly 
exceeding the others in length, with nails rudimentary or absent. 
AMonachus.\—Dentition : i 2,¢4, p 4, m 14; total 32. Crowns 
of molars strong, conical, compressed, hollowed on the inner side, 
with a strongly marked lobed cingulum, especially on the inner side, 
and slightly developed accessory cusps before and behind. The 
first and last upper and the first lower molar considerably smaller 
than the others. Vertebre: C 7,D15,L5,8 2,011. All the 
Fleming, Philosophy of Zoology, vol. ii. p. 187 (1822). 
