I O < 
' sea-gull 
terns (Stcminee) receive the same name. See 
cut under gull-. 
seah (se'ii)'. ii. [Heh.] A Jewish dry measure 
containing nearly 14 pints. Stmmonds. 
sea-haar (sS'har), . A chilly, piercing fog or 
mist arising from the sea. [Scotch.] 
sea-hair (se'liar), . A sertnlarian polyp, as 
Xci-liilariti ii/H'i-ciiliilii. 
sea-hanger (se'hang"er), . Same as hanger.7. 
sea-hare (se'liar), . A mollusk of the family 
Anlgxiidet. See Aplyxia. 
sea-hawk (se'hak), . A rapacious gull-like 
bird of the genus Stereorartu <>r l,rstri.t; a jii- 
ger;askua. See cut under Stcrcorarius. Mac- 
qiUirra i/. 
sea-heath (se'heth), . See Frankenia. 
sea-hedgehog (se'hej'hog), H. 1. Some or any 
sea-urchin, especially one having long or large 
spines; a sea-egg. 2. A globe-fish; a swell- 
fish ; a porcupine-fish ; any plectognath with 
prickles or spines, as that figured under Diodon. 
sea-hen (se'hen), n. 1. The common murre 
or guillemot. [Local, British.] 2. The great 
skua, Stercorarius skua. [New Eng.] 3. The 
piper-gurnard. [Scotch.] 
sea-hog (se'hog), n. A porpoise; a sea-pig. 
The old popular idea which affixed the name of Sea- 
Hog to tht Porpoise contains a larger element of truth 
than the speculations of many accomplished zoologists of 
modern times. W. H. Flower, Encyc. Brit., XV. 394. 
sea-holly (se'hoFi), . The eringo, Eryngium 
maritimiim. Also sea-holm and sea-httlver. See 
eringo and Eryngium. 
sea-holm 1 (se'holm), n. [< sea 1 + holm 1 . Cf. 
AS. seeholm, the sea.] A small uninhabited 
sea-holm 2 (se'holm), n. [< sea 1 + holm*.] Sea- 
holly. 
Cornewall naturally bringeth forth greater store of sea- 
holm and sampire then is found in any other county. 
B. Carew, Survey of Cornwall, p. 19. 
sea-honeycomb (se'hun"i-k6m), n. Same as 
sea-corn. 
sea-horse (se'hors), n. 1. A fabulous animal 
depicted with fore parts like those of a horse, 
and with hinder parts like those of a fish. The 
Nereids are fabled to have used sea-horses as riding- 
steeds and Neptune to have employed them for drawing 
his chariot. In the sea-horse of heraldry a scalloped fln 
runs down the back. 
There in the Tempest is Neptune with his Tritons in 
his Chariot drawn with Sea Horses and Mairmaids singing. 
Quoted in Ashton's Social Life in Reign of Queen Anne, 
[I. 254. 
2. A hippopotamus. 3. A morse or walrus. 
4. A hippocampus ; any syngnathous fish of the 
family Hippocampidte. See cut under Hippo- 
campidse. 5. The acanthopterygian fish Agri- 
opus (or Congiopodus) torviis. See Agriopus. 
Flying sea-horses, the Pegasid/e. See cut under Pe- 
ganidK. Sea-horse tooth, the ivory-yielding tooth of 
the walrus or of the hippopotamus. 
sea-hound (se'houud). n. The dogfish, a kind 
of shark. 
sea-hulver (se'hul"ver), n. Same as sea-holly. 
sea-island (se'i'land), a. An epithet applied 
to a fine long-stapled variety of cotton grown 
on the islands off the coast of South Carolina 
and Georgia. See cotton-plant. 
sea-jelly (se'jel"i), n. A jellyfish ; a sea-blub- 
ber. 
sea-kale (se'kal), n. See kale and Crambe, 2. 
sea-kelp (se'kelp), . See kelp%. 
sea-kemp (se'kemp), n. See kemp*. 
sea-kidney (se'kid"ni), . A pennatulaceous 
alcyonarian polyp of the genus lienilla : so 
called from its shape. These polyps bear the poly- 
5441 
reniform disk, they are free or very loosely attached to the 
sand where they live at or near low-water mark. Some are 
common on the Atlantic coast of the United States. 
sea-king (se'king), . One of the piratical 
Scandinavian chiefs who with their followers 
ravaged the coasts of Europe during the early 
medieval period. 
The sea-kings' daughter as happy as fair, 
Blissful bride of a blissful heir. 
Tennyson, Welcome to Alexandra. 
sea-kittie (se'kif'i), n. The kittiwake, a gull. 
See cut under kittiwaki: [Norfolk and Suffolk, 
Eng.] 
seal 1 (sel), n. [Also Sc. (retaining orig. gut- 
tural) sealgh, selch, sitch (see sealgh) ; < ME. selc, 
< AS. seal, siol, seolh = Icel. selr = Sw. sjel (also 
sjel-hund, 'seal-hound') = Dan. seel (also seel- 
hund) = OHG. sdach, sclah, MHG. selch, selc, 
a seal; perhaps = Gr. otfoxof; mostly in pi. 
ceUx'l, a sea-fish (applied to all cartilaginous 
fishes, including the sharks), a fish (see selachi- 
an); perhaps orig. 'of the sea'; cf. Gr. a/If, L. 
sa^theseaiseesa^andsa/* 1 .] 1. Amarinecar- 
nivorous mammal of the order Ferx, suborder 
Pinnipedia, and family Phocidx or Otariidie ; 
any pinniped not a walrus for example, a hair- 
seal, a fur-seal, an eared seal, of which there are 
numerous genera and species. Seals are regarded as 
carnivores modified for aquatic life. The modification is 
profound, and somewhat parallel with that which causes 
certain other mammals, the cetaceans and sirenians, to re- 
semble fishes in the form of the body and in the nature of 
the limbs. But seals retain a coat of hairor furlike ordinary 
quadrupeds, and an expression of the face like that of other 
carnivores. The body is more or less fusiform, tapering 
like that of a fish. It is prone, and can scarcely be lifted 
from the ground, so short are the limbs. These are reduced 
to mere flippers, especially in the true Phocidie, in which 
the hind legs extend backward and cannot be brought into 
the position usual to mammals, but resemble the flukes 
of a cetacean. In the otaries (Otariid/e) the limbs are 
freer and less constrained. The latter have small but 
evident external ears, wanting in the former. The monk- 
seal, Konachus albioenter, lives in the Mediterranean and 
neighboring Atlantic, and a related species, JHonachm 
tropicalis, is found between the tropics in Central Ameri- 
can and West Indian waters. Another seal, Phoca cos- 
pica, inhabits inland waters of the Caspian, Aral, and 
Baikal. But with few exceptions all seals are maritime 
and also extratropical. They are especially numerous in 
high latitudes of the northern hemisphere. Among the 
Phocidee may be noted Phoca vitulina, the ordinary har- 
bor-seal or sea-calf, common in British waters and along 
the Atlantic coast of the United States; it is often tamed 
and exhibited in aquaria, being gentle and docile, and ca- 
pable of being taught to perform some amusing tricks ; il 
is one of the smaller species, usually from 3 to 5 feet long, 
and being the best-known, as well as wide-ranging, it 
has many local and fanciful names. Phoca grainlandi- 
ca (Payophilui groinlandicwf) is the Greenland seal, or 
harp-seal or saddleback, peculiarly colored, of large size, 
and an important object of the chase. Pagomys faetidus 
is a smaller species, the ringed seal or floe-rat of Green- 
land. Erignathns barbatus is the great bearded or square- 
flippered seal of Greenland, attaining a length of 8 or 10 
feet. Halichcerus gryphus is a great gray seal of both 
Great Gray Seal (.Halicharus fryf/i 
coasts of the North Atlantic, of about the dimensions of 
the last named. Histriophoca is a genus containing the 
banded seal or ribbon-seal, //. fasciata or //. equestris. 
All the foregoing are members of the subfamily Phocin/t. 
Cystophora cristala is the hooded, crested, or bladder-nosed 
Hooded Seal (Cystophora crisfata}. 
nijormis'), natural size. Small figure shows 
a single polypitc, i;illiiryecl. 
pites only on one side of the flat expansive polypidom. 
Though there is a stem from the hilum or notch of the 
342 
seal; this is a large seal, but the largest is the sea-ele- 
phant, Matnrhima probotcideta, of southern sens; and 
these two genera form the subfamily Cvetophorfnts. Cer- 
tain seals of the southern hemisphere, of the genera Lobo- 
seal 
itnii Slmorhynchus (or 0<tiorliini">), Lei>tnniirMf* (for- 
merly Ltptonye), ami Ommataphoaf, form the subfamily 
Sttnorhynchina; some of these arc known as sea-leopanli 
from their spotted colora- 
tion, and others as stern' iirks. 
All the foregoing an- /'//"- 
cidie, or earless seals, and 
they ai < also hair-seals. But 
the distinction between hair- 
seals and fur-seals is not, 
properly, that between Pho- 
cidie and Otariidie, but be- 
tween those members of the 
latter family which do not 
and those which do have a 
copious under-fur of com- 
mercial value. The larger 
otaries are of the former 
character; they belong to 
the genera Otaria, Eitmt'- 
topias, and Zalophus, are of 
great size, and are common- 
ly called sea-lions; they are 
of both the northern and the 
southern hemisphere, chiefly 
in Pacific waters, and do not 
occur in the North Atlantic. 
The southern fur-seals or 
sea-bears are species of Arc- 
tocephalus, and among the igloo, or Seal's House (shown 
smaller otaries. The fur-seal in section). 
of most economic impor- 
tance is the North Pacific sea-bear, Callorhima ursinus. 
Some genera of fossil seals are described. See cuts under 
Cystnphorinie, Ervjnathuf, Emnetopias, fur-seal, harp-seal, 
otary, Pagoniys, Phoca, ribbon-seal, sea-elephant, sea-leop- 
ard, sea-lion, and Zalophm. 
2. In her., a bearing representing a creature 
something like a walrus, with a long fish-like 
body and the head of a carnivorous animal. 
Pied seal. Same as monk -seal. See def. 1. 
seal 1 (sel), v. i. [< seal 1 , .] To hunt or catch 
seals. 
Open those waters of Bering Sea to unchecked pelagic 
sealing . . . then nothing would be left of those wonder- 
ful and valuable interests of our Government. 
H. W. Elliott, Fur-seal Fisheries of Alaska, p. 141. 
seal 2 (sel), . [K ME - seet ' sele , seale, seall, 
seyalle, < OF. seel, seel, pi. seaux, scans, seaulx, 
F. sceau = Sp. sello,sigilo = Pg. sello = It. 
sigiUo, a seal, = AS. sigel, sigil, sigl, a seal, an 
ornament, = D. eegel = MLG. segel, LG. segel 
= OHG. sigil, MHG. sigel (earlier insigel, insi- 
gele, OHG. insigili), G. siegel, a seal, = Icel. 
sigli = Sw.sigill = Dan. segl = Goth, sigljo, a 
seal, < L. sigillum, a seal, mark, dim. of signum, 
a mark, sign : see sign. Cf. sigil, directly from 
the L.] 1. An impressed device, as of a letter, 
cipher, or figure, in lead, wax, paper, or other 
soft substance, affixed to a document in con- 
nection with or in place of a signature, as a 
mark of authenticity and confirmation, or for 
the purpose of fastening up the document in 
order to conceal the contents. In the middle ages 
seals were either impressed in wax run on the surface of 
the document, or suspended by cord or strips of parch- 
ment as in the papal bulls. (See bull*, 2.) In some juris- 
dictions an impression on the paper itself is now sufficient, 
and in others the letters L. S. (locus sigUli, the place of the 
seal) or a scroll or a mere bit of colored paper (see def. 3) 
are equivalent. In the United States the seal of a corpo- 
ration or of a public officer may be by impression on the 
paper alone. 
I hadde Lettres of the Soudan, with his grete Seel; and 
comounly other Men ban but his Signett. 
MandemUe, Travels, p. 82. 
In wittenysse wherof, aswell the commune seall of the 
said maister and wardens of the ffraternyte aforesaid, as 
oure Covent seale, to this presents alternatli beth putt. 
English Gilds (E. E. T. S.), p. 326. 
Cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and 
set a seal upon him. Rev. xx. 3. 
There is my gage, the manual seal of death, 
That marks thee out for hell. 
Shak., Rich. II., iv. 1. 26. 
The word seal is often used to denote both the impres- 
sion made and the object that makes the impress. More 
correctly the latter is called the " matrix, " and only the 
impression is called the "seal." Encyc. Brit., XXI. 586. 
2. The engraved stone, glass, or metal stamp 
by which such an impression is made. Seals 
are sometimes worn as rings, and frequently as 
pendants from the watch-chain or fob. 
A sei/atte of sylver of the brotherredyis. 
English Gilds (E. E. T. S.), p. 327. 
If you have a ring about you, cast it off, 
Or a silver seal at your wrist, 
D. Jonson, Alchemist, in. 2. 
From 1045 we find a chancellor at the head of the clerks, 
holding the royal seal which Edward first brought into use 
in England. J. R. Green, Conq. of Eng., p. 526, note. 
3. A small disk of paper, or the like, attached 
to a document after the signature, and held 
to represent the seal of wax, which is in this 
case dispensed with. 4. That which authenti- 
cates, confirms, or ratifies; confirmation; as- 
surance; pledge. 
But my kisses bring again, bring again ; 
Seals of love, but seal'd in vain. 
Shak., M. forM., iv. 1.8. 
