90 
The Animal-Lore of Shahspeare s Time . 
Olaus Magnus has no mention of the Seal by that 
name, but his description of the sea-calf can 
apply to no other animal. He writes (p. 226): 
“ Because in the Bothnick and Finland Sea, there is a vast com¬ 
pany of sea-calves : wherefore I will set down briefly the nature of 
them, and the way to catch them, which 1 have seen. The sea-calf, 
which also in Latine is called helcus, hath its name from the likeness 
of a land-calf, and it hath a hard fleshy body ; and therefore is hard to 
be killed, but by breaking the temples of the head. They will low in 
their sleep, thence are they called calves. They will learn, and with 
their voyce and countenance salute the company, with a confused 
murmuring; called by their names, they will answer: no creature 
sleeps more profoundly; the fins that serve them for to swim in the 
sea, serve for legs on land, and they go hobling up and down as lame 
people do. Their skins, though taken from their bodies, have always 
a sense of the seas, the right fin hath a soporiferous quality, to make 
one sleep, if it be put under ones head. They that fear thunder, think 
those tabernacles best to live in, that are made of sea-calves skins, 
because onely this creature in the sea, as an eagle in the ayr, is safe 
and secure from the stroke of thunder.” 
Camden also uses the word sea-calf, in his notes on 
Sussex. 
“ Selsey befor said, is somewhat lower in the Saxon tongue, seal - 
sey , that is to say, the Isle of Sea-calves, for these in our language we 
call seale, which alwaies seek to islands, and to the shore, for to bring 
forth their yong, but now it is most famous for good cockles, and full 
lobsters.” ( Britain , p. 308, ed. Holland, 1610.) 
From Carew’s Survey of Cornwall , published 1602, we 
learn that seals were no unfrequent visitors on the Cornish 
coast. Carew writes:— 
“ The seal, or soyl, is in making and growth not unlike a pig, ugly 
faced, and footed like a moldwarp [mole] ; he delighteth in music, or 
any loud noise, and thereby is trained to approach near the shore, and 
to shew himself almost wholly above water. They also come on land 
and lie sleeping in holes of the cliffs; but are now and then waked 
with the deadly greeting of a, bullet in their sides.” (Page 106, ed. 
1811.) 
