490 WILD ANIMALS. 



of Jan May en, and occasionally it wanders mucli further to the 

 southward." 



" In the adult male the general colour is tawny or yellowish- 

 grey, sometimes nearly white. The so-called " saddle-mark " is a 

 large crescentic patch of brown or black crossing the front part 

 of the back, and passing backwards towards the hind-limbs. The 

 muzzle and extremities are dark, the former sometimes nearly black. 

 These markings, however, are not constantly alike, the saddle- 

 mark being much more pronounced and regular in some than in 

 others. The lower parts are of a ' dingy or tarnished silvery hue.' " 



" The adult female," says Dr. Brown, " is of a dull whitish or 

 yellowish straw-colour, and tawny on the back. Some are bluish 

 or grey above, with oval markings : these he believes to be younger 

 individuals. 



" The adult animal attains usually a length of five feet, and 

 sometimes more, but rarely reaches six feet." 



Professor Newton ^ observes of this seal, in his paper on the 

 Zoology of Spitzbergen, "It is of a social disposition, and we 

 saw it in herds of not less than fifty in number. These were very 

 fond of swimming in line, their heads alone above water, engaged 

 in a game of ' follow my leader ;' for on the first seal making a 

 roll over, or a spring into the air, each seal of the whole pro- 

 cession, on arriving at the same spot, did the like, and exactly in 

 the same manner. While viewing this singular proceeding (and 

 I had many opportunities of doing so), I could not but be struck 

 with the plausibility of one of the suggested explanations of the 

 appearance which has obtained so wide-spread a notoriety under 

 the name of the ' Great Sea Serpent.' If any rule of the game in 

 which Phoca grcenlandica loves to indulge ever would permit the 

 leading seal to swim (say) one-third out of the water, as I have 

 seen Phoca harbata do, I could quite understand any person, not 

 an unromantic naturalist, on witnessing for the first time such 

 a sight as I have tried to describe, honestly believing that the 

 mythical monster was actually before his eyes." 



The seal that was kept in Exeter Change Menagerie was a 

 constant source of amusement and wonderment to the visitors who 

 '^ "Proceedings of the Zoological Society," 1864. 



