394 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
and which he considered corresponded more closely to 
Crantz's description of the Eskimo Atarsoak than P. Green- 
landica, to which it has been referred ; otherwise he be- 
lieved that it was unknown to science. 
It is the " Ground-seal" of the hunters, and, like the last 
noticed species, few are taken by the sealers, but are mostly 
seen by the whalers in high latitudes, especially from the 
parallel of 76° north latitude as far as Spitzbergen. The 
length of the male is about eight feet, and the female up- 
wards of six feet. The colour and peculiar markings of the 
male very much resemble the male Saddleback, but its ap- 
pearance is much more robust, and of greater girth for its 
length ; while, upon the whole, the shade of its colour is 
darker, and yellowish or coppery ground colour more 
distinct. The full-grown female, also, to a certain extent, 
corresponds to the female " Saddleback f with this marked 
difference, that her colour is of a deep tawny yellow. Le- 
pechin's Phoca leporina of the White Sea, or " Hare of the 
Sea" of the Eussians, is almost identical with the female 
ground-seal. Its most common resort is on the floe and 
fixed ice — in herds of two or three hundred. 
Shannon Isle and the east coast of Greenland are said to 
be peculiar haunts of this species, in common with the 
" Bladdernose." Its habits differ much from those of any 
other species of seal at present known to naturalists. 
Dr Wallace concluded his paper with some general re- 
marks on the "Habits and Instincts of Seals," and an account 
of the Greenland seal-fisheries as pursued at the present 
day. 
Seals pass most of their time asleep, sleeping and waking 
every two or three minutes. When disturbed, every seal 
makes an attempt to defend itself, and in the case of the 
P. leonina, with considerable danger to its assailant, if not 
well armed. They keep watches during the time the rest 
are sleeping (and it is said that these watches are gene - 
rally composed of females !) Their " blow-holes" are evi- 
dently formed by the seals while the ice is forming, the 
animal always rising to breathe at the same place, thus pre- 
