ANIMAL PETS, IN AND OUT OF DOORS 59 



larger one in the person of the Seal shown in Fig. 50. Here we 

 see the animal enjoying forty winks. Nobody should keep a Seal 

 as a pet unless living near the sea, where a good supply of fish is 

 guaranteed. I have on more than one occasion known the poor 

 creature to be literally starved to death through failure to procure 

 proper food, and this practice of keeping an animal which it is not 

 possible to feed properly cannot be too strongly condemned. 



There are a number of different kinds of Seals, both real and 

 so-called, which, shortly stated, may be placed in three different 

 families, such as Eared Seals, Walruses and Earless Seals. Among 

 the first family are included the valuable fur-bearing Seals, whose 

 pelage is of such commercial value, and these fur-bearers are 

 naturally more highly regarded from the commercial point of view 

 than their cousins the hair-bearers. We shall meet with the well- 

 known Californian Sea-Lion — which is also a hair-bearer — in a 

 subsequent chapter, and we need only concern ourselves here with 

 a few particulars as to Seals in general and the Common Seal shown 

 in Fig. 50. 



The Northern and the Southern Sea-Lions are worthy representa- 

 tives of the Eared family, although both species are hair-bearers, 

 whilst the Northern Sea-Bear, the South American Fur-Seal, the 

 Cape Fur-Seal and the New Zealand Fur-Seal adequately represent 

 the true fur-bearing species. 



The Walrus is placed in a family of its own, and although there 

 may be two species — both exclusively inhabitants of the Polar 

 regions of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres — many natural- 

 ists are of opinion that they are so closely allied that they belong to 

 one and the same species. 



This brings us, then, to the third family we mentioned, and 

 of these true, or Earless Seals, the Grey, Common (Fig. 50), 

 Greenland, Ringed and Bearded need only be mentioned by 

 name. 



The Common Seal is the species mostly met with on the British 

 coast, and it seems a thousand pities that such an interesting visitor 

 should so frequently receive a most undesirable welcome from some 

 hooligan with a gun or stick. The young Seals are difficult to 

 distinguish — ^that is, so far as concerns the Common, Ringed and 

 Greenland species — but there is no mistaking the first-named if an 

 examination of its teeth is made. It has broad and thick cheek-teeth, 

 which are characterized by being set close together; it has shorter 



