142 
CARNIVORES. 
neighbouring portions of the Atlantic, extending to Madeira and the Canary 
Islands. Although but little is known of its habits in a wild state, the monk-seal 
is very readily tamed, and is the species which used to be exhibited in England as 
the “ talking fish.” 
w g i The closely-allied West Indian seal is of nearly the same colour 
as the monk-seal in the adult state, but the young are of a deep 
glossy black. This species is interesting from its restricted distribution, and the 
prospect of its impending extermination. Although discovered as far back as the 
year 1494 by the flotilla of Columbus, when cruising in the West Indies, this seal, 
up to the year 1883, was represented in scientific collections only by a single skin 
sent to the British Museum in 1846 by Mr. P. H. Gosse. In the year 1687, when 
Sir Hans Sloane visited the Bahamas, these seals were extraordinarily abundant, 
the sealers sometimes killing as many as a hundred in a single night. In less than 
two centuries they had, however, become exterminated from most of their former 
haunts, although some were known to remain on the rocky islands of Pedro Keys, 
to the southward of Jamaica. In 1886, as Mr. F. A. Lucas tells us, a vessel visited 
three small islands lying between Yucatan and Florida, known as the Triangles, 
with the hope of finding a colony of these seals. In this hope the expedition was 
not disappointed, upwards of forty specimens being secured before the vessel was 
compelled to put back from stress of weather. We are not told how many of these 
seals were then remaining on the islands. 
It has been already mentioned that the seals of this group have the first and 
fifth toes of the hind-feet much longer than the others, and since this is a character 
which they possess in common with the eared seals, it is interesting to learn that 
the West Indian seal has the power of bringing the hind-feet forwards to a certain 
extent when on land by curving the body upwards. When straightening itself 
the creature pitches ahead on its breast, advancing about a foot by the operation. 
The Leopard-Seal. 
Genus Ogmorhinus. 
The leopard-seal (Ogmorhinus leptonyx) may be taken as the best known 
representative of four genera 
confined to the Southern 
and Antarctic Seas, and 
each containing but a single 
species. These seals differ 
from the monk - seal by 
certain characters of their 
skulls, and are likewise dis¬ 
tinguished from that species 
and from one another by the 
form of their cheek-teeth. 
The leopard-seal or, as it is often called, the sea-leopard is distinguished by 
the great length of its skull, and by the cheek-teeth consisting of three large and 
SKULL OF LEOPARD-SEAL. 
