
SEALS AND WHALES OF THE L.M.B.C. DISTRICT. 263 
notes on their occurrence, I applied to Mr. Alfred O. 
Walker, late of Chester, who has long taken a keen 
interest in the marine zoology of the district, and he writes 
me, May 7th, 1889, ‘“‘I have occasionally heard of Seals . 
being taken in the Dee and Mersey, but have never seen 
them, and can give you no information as to species.”’ I 
cannot find a record of the Common Seal, Phoca vitulina, 
even as a visitor, though many particulars are noted of it 
visiting the Scotch and Irish coasts. Its extreme shyness, 
and the vast increase in shipping are, doubtless, the causes 
of its absence here. 
PINNIPEDIA. 
Family. PHocIDz. 
Phoca grenlandica, Fabr. 
A specimen identified as the Harp Seal by Sir Wiliam 
Turner and Mr. T. Gough, was captured on the coast of 
Lancashire, in 1874.* 
Halicherus grypus, Fabr. 
In 1861 I noted and exhibited a fine recently stuffed 
specimen of a Seal, caught in ‘the Canada Dock, and 
presented to the Museum by Mr. George Hulse, turtle 
merchant, of Liverpool. Owing to the difficulties of 
determination, alluded to above, I then supposed this to 
be the Common Seal (Phoca vitulina), and it was not till 
I was able to compare in the British Museum the skull 
from the stuffed specimen that I found it to be an example 
- of the Grey Seal} (Halicherus grypus). 
* Journ. Anat. and Physiol., vol. ix., p. 163. 
+ Bell’s “British Quadrupeds,” ed. 2, p. 262; Gray’s “‘ Museum Catalogue,” 
ed. 2, p. 34. 
