46 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



Order CARNIVORA. Fam. PHOCID^E. 



COMMON SEAL. 



Phoca vltulina, L. 



Seals are decidedly rare on our coast ; perhaps the sandy 

 character of our foreshore and the absence of rocks and islands 

 to some extent account for the fact. Odd ones occur at irregular 

 intervals both in Morecambe Bay and in the main channel of 

 the English Solway. The last known to have been captured on 

 the Lancashire Sands became entangled in the salmon nets near 

 Chapel Island. The animal was not preserved, but Mr. W. 

 Duckworth saw it in the flesh, and sent me a description of it. 

 It was caught in the autumn of 1889. I did not hear of 

 another local specimen until December 1891, when a solitary 

 straggler turned up near Port Carlisle, and was shot by a fisher- 

 man. Two of the fishermen belonging to that village caught a 

 Seal in their Haaf nets in July 1877. I have only one note of 

 any Seal being killed in the English Solway between 1878 and 

 1891. The animal in question was a very young one, and was 

 killed on the Esk. 



Seals were occasionally dressed for the table of Lord William 

 Howard, but whether they were obtained on our coast is 

 unknown. Most probably they came from the east coast. 



GREENLAND SEAL. 



Phoca gi'cenlandica, Fab. 



Although a common form in northern latitudes, and one 

 with which, as I understand, the Dundee whalers are especially 

 familiar, this Seal has rarely been identified as a wanderer to 

 any part of the British coasts. That it has been detected in a 

 single instance on the north-west coast of England is due to the 

 scientific acumen of the late Dr. Gough, who announced its 

 occurrence in the following words : — 



' Capture of a Seal in Morecambe Bay. — On Thursday, the 

 23d of January [1868] the Messrs. Crossfield shot a seal near the 

 viaduct on the Lancaster and Ulverston Railway, near Arnside. 



