| 
: 
Crass I. oo Ea £5 
to the boat, which two men are left to guard. 
“This is a moft hazardous employ; for fhould their 
torches go out, or the wind blow hard from fea 
during their continuance in the cave, their lives are 
loft. The young feals of fix weeks age, yield more 
oil than their emaciated dams: above eight gallons 
have been got from a fingle whelp, which fells 
from fix-pence to nine-pence per sees: ; the fkins 
from fix-pence to twelve-pence. 
‘The natural hiftory of this animal may be further 
elucidated, by the following extraéts from a letter 
of the Rev. Dr. William Borlafe, dated Ofober the 
24th, 1763. 
* The feals are feen in the greateft plenty on the 
¢ fhores of Cornwall, in the months of May, Yune, 
“and July. 
‘ They are of different fizes; fome as large as a 
“cow, and from that downwards to a {mall calf. 
© They feed on moft forts of fifh which they can 
‘mafter, and are feen fearching for their prey near 
‘fhore, where the whiftling fifh, wraws, and 
‘ polacks refort, 
‘ They are very fwift in their proper depth of 
“water, dive like a fhot, and in a trice rife at fifty 
‘ yards diftance ; fo that weaker fithes cannot avoid 
‘their tyranny, except in fhallow water. A per- 
* fon of the parifh of Sennan, faw not long fince a 
*feal in purfuit of a mullet (that ftrone and fwift 
¢ fifh) : the feal turned it to and fro’ in deep water, 
* as a gre-hound does a hare: the mullet at lait 
gig Oe * found 
143 
