SEALS. 
REMARKS UPON SEALS. 
Of these intelligent and easily-trained animals the 
Society have of late been successful in obtaining several 
important additions. In 1870 the collection contained five 
species of this interesting family, consisting of the follow- 
ing genera, Otaria, Phoca, and Gystopliora^ which are repre- 
sented by five species, viz. : — Otaria juhata, Cystopliora 
cristata, Phoca fodida, Phoca vitnlina, and Phoca green- 
landica. 
People living in London and other large cities think 
little of the large number of skins and enormous quantity 
of oil that is brought to this country annually, and which 
is obtained by the wholesale slaughter of these inoffensive 
animals, and have no idea of the numbers that must perish 
to supply the constant demand ; for this destruction is 
carried on not only in the Northern but in the Southern 
Ocean. It is in the latter that the much-prized fur seals 
are obtained in the greatest abundance from the different 
species, of Otar la, or eared seals, while most of the northern 
seals are known as hair seals. Both of these forms are 
represented in the Society’s Gardens, but much difficulty 
exists in the minds of most people in distinguishing a hair 
seal from a fur seal when alive. The fact is that fur seals 
are covered with hair similar to the covering of the other 
kinds, but in the preparation of the skin the hairs are all 
plucked out, just as the skins of swans are plucked of their 
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