WILD ANIMALS IN CAPTIVITY 
pared with the size of the animal. They soon become 
attached to any one who will take the trouble to feed 
and pet them. 
ARE YOUNG SEALS BORN BLIND ? 
There was at one time considerable controversy in the 
daily papers on this subject, both sides strongly stating 
opposite facts. The following extract is from the letter of 
a skipper of a whaler, who had spent many years in the ice, 
and who since that made the famous voyage in the Erin, 
Mr. Leigh Smith’s, to the Arctic regions : — “ As regards 
the young seals, they can see as soon as they are born. I 
have shot the old seals in the act of giving birth to their 
young, and I found that they could see ; and I have shot 
old seals with the young in them, and I have found their 
eyes open and quite clear. I have also seen a seal give 
birth and make for the water at once, and the young ones 
follow to the edge of the piece of ice after the mother. 
Their eyes are quite bright at birth.” 
To this question I am able to give a very positive 
answer. On May 23, 1868, I purchased of a dealer in 
Liverpool four adult seals. One of them proved to be in 
young, and was consequently placed by herself in a suit- 
able enclosure with a small pond. She soon became quite 
tame, and fed freely. On June 8 she became restless, and 
on the following day about twelve o’clock she produced a 
young one, near the edge of the water. It was covered 
with a rather thick coat of hair, its eyes very hrigJit and wide 
O'Pen ; it turned and rolled about, divesting itself of the 
outer covering of hair, which formed a complete mat upon 
which the young animal lay. For the first hour or 
two after its birth it was very active, and within three 
hours it was swimming and diving about in the water 
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