326 
YEKTEBEATA, 
fire for the night; something scratched gently at the door; it was of course the watch-dog; she 
opened the door, and in came the seal ! Wearied with his long and unusual voyage, he testified 
by a peculiar cry, expressive of pleasure, his delight to find himself at home, then stretching him- 
self before the glowing embers of the hearth, he fell into a deep sleep. 
"The master of the house was immediately apprised of this unexpected and unwelcome visit. In 
this exigency, the old dame was awakened and consulted ; she answered that it was always un- 
lucky to kill a seal, but suggested that the animal should be deprived of sight, and a third time 
carried out to sea. To this hellish proposition the besotted wretch who owned the house con- 
sented, and the aft'ectionate and confiding creature was cruelly deprived of sight on the hearth 
for which he had resigned his native element! Next morning, writhing in agony, the mutilated 
seal was embarked, taken outside Clare Island, and committed to the waves. A Aveek passed 
over, and things became worse instead of better; the cattle died fast, and the infernal hag con- 
fessed that her arts were useless, and that the destructive visitations upon the cattle exceeded her 
skill and cure. 
"On the eighth night after the seal had been committed to the Atlantic, it blew tremendously. 
In the pauses of the storm, a wailing noise was at times faintly heard at the door; the servants 
who slept in the kitchen concluded that the Banshee had come to forewarn them of an approach- 
ing death, and buried their heads in the bed-coverings. When morning broke, the door was 
opened : the seal was there, lying dead upon the threshold ! The skeleton of the once plump an- 
imal — for, poor beast, it perished from hunger, being incapacitated, by blindness, to procure its 
customary food — was buried in a sand-hill, and from that moment, misfortunes followed the 
abettors and perpetrators of this inhuman deed. The detestable hag who had denounced the in- 
otfensive seal was, within a year, hanged for the murder of her own grandchild. 
"Everything about the devoted house melted away: sheep rotted, cattle died, and the corn 
was blighted. Of several children, none reached maturity, and the hard-hearted proprietor sur- 
vived every thing he loved or cared for. He died Mind and miserable. There is not a stone of 
that accursed building standing upon another. The property has passed to a family of a different 
name, and the series of incessant calamity which pursued all concerned in this cruel deed is as 
ronaantic as true." 
TEE COMMON SEAL. 
Genus CALLOCEPIIALUS : CallocepTialus of E. Cuvier. — Of this there are several species, 
the most noted of which is the Sea-Calf, or CoMMOijr Seal, G. vitidinus, the Phoca vitulina of 
Linnaeus, the Veau Marin of the French, Vecchio Marino of the Italians, Meerwolf and Meerhund 
of the Germans, Lobo Marino of the Spanish. The ground-color of the hair or skin, when this 
