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The Common or Spotted Seal (. Phoca vitulina ) is found 
in all the seas encircling northern Europe, Asia, and America, 
rarely being seen on our coast below Maine, except in winter, 
when it sometimes finds its way as far south as Chesapeake 
Bay. It is the type of the Phocidcz , or Earless Seals, of which 
it is the smallest. Like all seals, they live on fish, which in a 
state of nature they catch with great address. Quite a num¬ 
ber of seals of this group have been shown in the Garden, 
one of which, a specimen of the Hooded Seal ( Cystophora 
cristata), was captured on the New Jersey coast near Long 
Branch. 
Another rare species, examples of which have twice been 
exhibited, is the West Indian Seal (. Monachus tropicalis ), 
formerly not uncommon throughout the Caribbean Sea, from 
which it has now disappeared with the exception of a few of 
the more remote islands and keys. 
One of the ponds is occupied by a number of Gillespie's 
Hair Seal or Sea Lion (, Zalophus calif or mantis'). This 
species is found in large numbers on the Pacific Coast of the 
United States; those in the Garden having been captured at 
the San Miguel Islands, off the coast of California, not far 
from Santa Barbara; they are common at Seal Rock, just 
outside of the entrance to the bay of San Francisco, and a 
closely allied species is found in the waters of the same lati¬ 
tude on the Asiatic side of the Pacific. 
The differences between this species and the Northern Sea 
Lion ( Enmetopias stelleri ) are mainly in size, the latter grow¬ 
ing much larger, and also in some details of the skull and 
teeth. The male hair seal, when adult, weighs three or four 
times as much as the female, and is provided with enormous 
canine teeth, with which they fight terrible battles at the 
season of rutting, often injuring each other severely; they 
are of a savage and dangerous disposition, and are ugly an¬ 
tagonists even to man. 
They swim and float with great address, sleeping on the 
surface of the water ; they remain at sea during eight or nine 
months of the year, coming out on shore in vast numbers at 
the season of breeding, where they remain in some cases as 
much as three months without food or water. On land they 
progress with more ease than is common with other seals, by 
a gait somewhat like the canter of a horse ; they climb rocks 
easily, and throw themselves from a height of ten or fifteen 
feet into the water or on the rocks without damage—their 
