Marine Carnivora 



141 



of the North Atlantic is a large species which visits the North British coasts and the Hebrides. 

 One old male shot off the coast of Connemara weighed nearly 400 lbs., and was 8 feet long. 

 It is found off' Scandinavia and eastwards to the coast of Greenland, and breeds off our coasts 

 in October and November. This is the large seal occasionally shot u[> .Scotch lochs. Its colour 

 is yellowish grey, varied with blots and jiatches of dirty black and brown. 



The Common Seal. 



This seal is smaller than the precetling. It breeds on parts of the ^^■elsh and Cornish 

 coasts, and is found on both sides of the Atlantic and in the North Pacific. It assembles in small 

 herds, and frequents lochs, estuaries, and river-mouths. In the summer it is fond of following 

 flounders and sea-trout up rivers. A few years ago one came up the Thames and was shot at 

 Richmond. The young are born in June, and are greyish white. Tlie adults are variously 

 mottled with grey, brown, and black. The fondness of seals for music is proverbial. Macgillivray, 

 the Scotch naturalist, said that in the Hebrides he could bring half a score of them within forty 

 yards of him by a few notes on his flute, when they would swim about with their heads above 

 water like so many black dogs. A seal was captured by the servants of a landowner near 

 Clew Bay, on the west coast of Ireland, and kept tame for four years. It became so attached 

 to the house that, after being carried out to sea three times, it returned on each occasion. 

 The cruel wretches who owned it then blinded it, out of curiosity to see whether it could find 

 its way back sightless. The poor animal did so after eight days. 



The common seal is still fairly numerous on the rocky western coasts of the British 

 Islands, though a few old seals, unable to forget their early habits, appear now and then in 

 Morecambe Bay and in the Solway. It is not uncommon off the coasts of Caithness and 

 Sutherland. It also frequents a sandbank in the Dornoch Firth, though it has been much 

 persecuted there. The common 

 seal is gregarious, while the grey 

 seal usually lives only in pairs, or 

 at most in small companies. Two 

 or three dozen like to lie closely 

 packed on shore with all their 

 heads turning seawards. The 

 wdiite hair of the young seals — 

 which, as already said, are born in 

 Jane — is shed in a day or two, 

 when the young take to the 

 water. With regard to their re- 

 puted musical proclivities, some 

 experiments made at the Zoo- 

 logical Gardens did not bear out 

 this belief; but there is much 

 evidence that in a state of nature 

 they will apijiroach and listen to 

 music. The common seal has 

 a large brain-capacity, and is a 

 very intelligent creature. The 

 upper parts of this seal are 

 yellowish grey, spotted with black 

 and brown, the under parts being 

 silver-grey. 



The Harp-seal is an Arctic ll>i permission o/ Hen- Ca,H nagaibcrk] [EambK-n,. 



or ice-seal which sometimes finds ^^'^"xus and sea-lion. 



_ Anotbev photograph of the walrus tamed by Herr Carl Ihigenbeck. Notice the sea-liLin iu 



its "\VaV to Britain. The young the riL;ht-hand comer, which also formed one of the s;iii:e performing truiipe. 



