BRITISH MAMMALS 



Genus Erignathus, Gill. 



THE BEARDED SEAL. 



Erignathus barbatus, Fabricius. 



Plate i6. 



The Bearded Seal is another Arctic species which attains a large size, 

 the adult males sometimes measuring 12 feet in length. 



Dr. Kane {^Arctic Exploration^ p. 154) says, "I have measured these 

 ten feet in length, and eight in circumference, of such unwieldy bulk as 

 not unfrequently to be mistaken for the walrus." Adult specimens of this 

 seal are rarely to be seen in British collections, the only one I have been 

 able to find being in the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh. 



The coat of this example which I have figured in the Plate is of a 

 yellowish drab-colour without spots or markings, while the flattened bristles 

 on the muzzle, which have given the animal its name, are dull white. The 

 head is small and round, the fore-flippers furnished with strong curved claws. 



It inhabits the northern Polar Seas of both the Old and New Worlds, 

 going far north and being well distributed jfrom the coasts of Labrador 

 and Greenland to Spitzbergen and the northern parts of Scandinavia. 

 This species also frequents the North Pacific. 



The Bearded Seal has only once been known with certainty to have 

 reached the British Islands, when a young male was taken off the 

 Norfolk coast in February 1892. 



From Dr. Kane we learn that this species, unlike the Ringed Seal, 

 makes no atiuk or breathing hole in the ice, but depends on accidental 

 fissures where bergs or floes have been in motion. The skin is much 

 prized by the Esquimaux for making harpoon lines for Walrus hunting. 



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