14 SEALS AND WHALES OF THE BRITISH SEAS. 



Dr. Brown says that the Greenland Seal {PIi. grccnlandica) in its second coat 

 has often been mistaken for this species, but that the former may readily be 

 distinguished by its having the second toe of the fore-flipper the longest. The 

 hair next the skin is short and woolly, but externally harsh and shining, 

 admirably adapted for repelling the water in which the animal passes so much 

 of its time ; the whiskers with which the upper lip is furnished, are thick, 

 flattened hairs, laterally compressed, presenting diamond-shaped inequalities : 

 this form of bristle is found in all the British Seals, whereas Phoca barbata, 

 a species shortly to be mentioned as of doubtful occurrence on our coast, has 

 the bristles compressed, but smooth. The food of the Common Seal consists 

 of fish and crustacea. 



THE RINGED, OR MARBLED SEAL. 



The only recorded instance of the occurrence of the RINGED SEAL, 

 PJioca hispida, of Schreber, on the British coast, is that of an individual 

 captured on the Norfolk coast, in June, 1846, and purchased by Mr. 

 J. H. Gurney, in the flesh, in the Norwich fish-market, the skull of which 

 is now in the Museum of that city. Although no other instance of its 

 occurrence is on record, it seems not improbable that it may occasionally be 

 met with, and pass unrecognized. In the first volume of the ' Magazine of 

 Zoology and Botany,' Mr. Wilson, in a paper on the Scottish Seals, speaks of 

 a small Seal which was sometimes seen in the Hebrides, and believed by the 

 natives to be a distinct species : this was rendered probable by their not 

 associating with the Common Seals, and not being so wild in their nature. 

 It is thought that this small Seal may have been Ph. hispida. Small 

 dark-coloured Seals have more than once been seen on the Norfolk and 

 Lincolnshire coast, or exhibited in the towns, which it is quite possible also 

 may have belonged to this species. That it inhabited the coast of Scotland 



