174 COMMON SEAL. Class I. 



£ June, and July. They are of different sizes ; 

 ' some as large as a cow, and from that down- 

 ' wards to a small calf. They feed on most sorts 

 4 of fish which they can master, and are seen 

 c searching for their prey near shore, where the 

 ' whistling fish, wraws, and polacks resort, 

 c They are very swift in their proper depth of 

 ' water, dive like a shot, and in a trice rise at 

 ' fifty yards distance ; so that weaker fishes 

 1 cannot avoid their tyranny, except in shallow 

 1 water. A person of the parish of Sennan, 

 1 saw not long since a seal in pursuit of a mullet 

 { (that strong and swift. fish); the seal turned it 



* to and fro' in deep water, as a gre-hound does 

 ' a hare ; the mullet at last found it had no way 

 ■ to escape, but by running into shoal water; 



* the seal pursued, and the former, to get more 

 ' surely out of danger, threw itself on its side, 

 ' by which means it darted into shoaler water 

 ' than it could have swam in with the depth of 



* its paunch and fins, and so escaped. 



' The seal brings her young about the be- 

 < ginning; of autumn ; our fishermen have seen 

 i two sucking their dam at the same time, as 

 1 she stood in the sea in a perpendicular posi- 

 ' tion. 



' Their head in swimming is always above 

 c water, more so than that of a dog. They 



