THE HARBOR SEAL: EAJiJ^GE AKD HABITS. 57 



Bering's Strait, where it seems to be an abundant species. I have examined specimens from the 

 Santa Barbara Islands, and various intermediate points to Alaska, and from Plover Bay, on the 

 eastern coast of Siberia. The extent of its range on the Asiatic coast has not been ascertained. 

 If it is the species referred to by Pallas under the name Phoca canina, and by Temminck, Von 

 Schrenck, and other German writers, under the name Phoca nummularis, as seems probable, it 

 occurs in Japan and along the Amoor coast of the Ochotsk Sea. Von Schrenck speaks of it, on 

 the authority of the natives, as entering the Amoor Eiver.i The late Dr. Gray referred a speci- 

 men from Japan to his ^^Halicyon Bichardsi,'" which, as already shown, is merely a synonym of 

 Phoca vitulina. It thus doubtless ranges southward along the Asiatic coast to points nearly cor- 

 responding in latitude with its southern limit of distribution on the American side of the Pacific. 



The Harbor Seal not only frequents the coast of the North Atlantic and the ISTorth Pacific, 

 and some of the larger interior seas, but ascends all the larger rivers, often to a considerable dis- 

 tance above tide-water. It even passes up the Saint Lawrence to the Great Lakes, and has been 

 taken in Lake Champlain. DeKay states, on the authority of a Canadian newspaper, that a Seal 

 (in all probability of this species) was taken in Lake Ontario near Cape Vincent (Jefferson County, 

 New York) about 1824, and adds that the same paper says that Indian traders report the previous 

 occurrence of Seals in the same lake, though such instances are rare.^ Thompson gives two 

 instances of its capture in Lake Champlain; one of the specimens he himself examined, and has 

 published a careful description of it, taken from the animal before it was skinned.^ 



They are also known to ascend the Columbia River as far as the Dalles (above the Cascades, 

 and about two hundred miles from the sea), as well as the smaller rivers of the Pacific coast, nearly 

 to their sources. Mr. Brown states that " Dog River, a tributary of the Columbia, takes its name 

 from a dog-like animal, probably a Seal, being seen in the lake whence the stream rises." ^ 



Habits. — The Harbor Seal is the only species of the family known to be at all common on 

 any part of the eastern coast of the United States. Although it has been taken as far south 

 as North Carolina, it is found to be of very rare or accidental occurrence south of New Jersey. 

 Respecting its history here, little has been recorded beyond the fact of its presence. Captain 

 Scammon has given a quite satisi'actory account of its habits and distribution as observed by him 

 on the Pacific coast of the United States, but under the supposition that it was a species distinct from 

 the well-known Phoca vitulina of the North Atlantic. Owing to its rather southerly distribution, 

 as compared with its more exclusively boreal affines, its biography has been many times written 

 in greater or less detail. Fabricius, as early as 1791, devoted not less than twenty pages to its 

 history, based in part on his acquaintance with it in Greenland, and partly on the writings of pre- 

 ceding authors ; ^ and much more recently extended accounts of it have been given by Nilsson and 



' Von Schkbnk : Eeisen im Amoor-Lande, Bd. i, p. 180. 



" DbKay : New York Zoology, or the Fauna of New York, pt. i, 1842, p. 55. 

 _ 3 His record of tlie capture of these examples is as follows: 



"While several persons were skating upon the ice on Lake Champlain, a little south of Burlington, iu February, 

 1810, they discovered a living Seal in a wild state which had found its way through a crack and was crawling upon 

 the ice. They took off their skates, with which they attacked and killed it, and then drew it to the shore. It is said to 

 have been four and a half feet long. It must have reached our lake by way of the Saint Lawrence and Eichelieu." — 

 Thompsons' Nat. and Civil Hist, of Vermont, 1842, p. 38. 



"Another Seal was killed upon the ice between Burlington and Port Kent on the 23d of February, 1846. Mr. 

 Tabor, of Keeseville, and Messrs. Morse and Field, of Peru, were crossing over iu sleighs when they discovered it 

 crawling npon the ice, and, attacking it with the butt end of their whips, they succeeded in killing it and brought it on 

 shore at Burlington, where it was purchased by Morton Cole, esq., and presented to the University of Vermont, where 

 its skin and skeleton are now preserved. * * * * At the time the above-mentioned Ssal was taken, the lake, with 

 the exception of a few cracks, was entirely covered with ice." — IMd., Append., 1853, p. 13. 



*Proc.Zool. Soc. Loud., 18G8, p. 412, foot-note. 



* Fabricius appears to have exhaustively presented its literary history, his references to previous authors, in his 

 table of synonymy, occupying nearly four pages. 



