30 



MAMMALS. 



Walker reported it as in a very fat condition. The date of the 

 capture was 22nd July 1872. It is further noticed also in 

 Dr. Buchanan AVhite's list {loc. cit.j p. 78). This appears to be 

 the only perfectly satisfactory record, unless one included in the 

 catalogue of the Vertebrate Animals of the Old Museum be a 

 different one — though it is probably the same.^ 



Halichaerus gryphus (Fab.). Great Grey Seal. 



Not uncommonly seen, and a few occasionally obtained both along 

 the coasts and at the entrances of Tay and other parts along both 

 the Fife and the Forfar and Kincardine shores. 



The Great Grey Seal was probably much more abundant than it 

 is now. Don's "Great Seal" was no doubt of this species (1813). 

 The attention, however, of naturalists — at least to the result of 

 recording — does not appear to have been drawn specially to their 

 abundance or scarcity at different times. 



In 1863 six of these huge beasts were caught in the salmon-nets 

 off Tents Muir, as will be found carefully recorded by Mr. Robert 

 Walker 2 in the Scot Nat (vol. ii. p. 188) ; and two more were also 

 obtained in 1868. One of the latter was sent to Prof. Turner, and is 

 taken note of by him in the Journal of Anatomy and Physiology. The 

 skull of the other one, of these two latter, was sent to Mr. Speedie — 

 the lessee of the nets and of the southern portion of the Tents Muir 

 — by Mr. Walker. Prof. Turner also makes mention of another 

 caught off Montrose (loc. cit). 



There are portions of this animal in the Perth Museum, bearing 

 dates of March 1870, also taken in Mr. Speedie's nets off Tents Muir, 

 and another at the same place in 1873 {vide Mr. W. Evans's Mammals 

 of the Edinburgh District). An adult female, bearing date of 1870, is 

 reported upon by Prof. Turner which weighed thirty-three stones 

 and is preserved in the Anatomical Museum of the College of Surgeons 

 in Edinburgh (vol. iv. p. 270). Two young ones are also recorded 

 from near Montrose. 



• 



1 Consult "Cetaceans in Scottish Seas" {Annals Scot. Nat. Hist., 1876, pp. 1-2). 



2 " On t}).e GveoX (ixey ^QoX [Halicharus gryphus) on the East Coast of Scotland," 

 by Robert Walker, F.G.S.E. [Scot. Nat., 1875-6, vol. iii. pp. 154-60). He ably 

 reviews the literature, as indeed he was always in the habit of doing. Hitherto he 

 has received no encomium ; and very little notice has ever been taken of his careful work, 

 at least none that I have been able to find. I would like to reproduce the whole article, 

 but that would occupy some five or six pages. 



