Gray Seal

“ Surely it was with true significance that Rosemary Dacre’s seal—the seal which always descends to her name-child in the house of Penicuik—was engraved with the sign of a single star, shedding a benign and steadfast light over a pathless vastitude of air and a fluctuating waste of sea; for the Lady’s memory seems to have shone with an ideal light through many human lives. ”

“ In the British Museum there is the skin of a very young Seal, which was presented by Sir John Richardson as the Falkland Island Fur-Seal, with the observation appended that the adult is 5 feet long, and its skin is worth fifteen dollars. It is without its skull. The fur of this young Seal is dark brown, reddish beneath, and very like that of the young specimen sent by Capt. Abbott; but the hairs are smoother, and the white tips to them are longer and more marked, giving the animal a more grizzled appearance. ”

“ Abbott’s account of this species. He says that “the full-grown Seal is about the size of the common English Seal. The largest skin I have ever seen I do not think measured more than 4 feet in length, perhaps hardly so much. The hair differs in colour, being sometimes grey, and at other times of a brownish tint; that of the young is of a darker brown colour.” All this agrees better with the true O. falklandica; but yet he says the skin of his half-grown specimen is now in the British Museum, and that skin is undoubtedly Euotaria nigrescens. Has Mr. Abbott confounded the two species in his mind? ”

“ In the dark blackish-brown colour of the fur and the pale-brown colour of the nape, and in the absence of the under-fur, this Seal resembles the adult Neophoca lobata from Australia; but in that species the pale colour extends all over the crown, while in the young male Otaria jubata there are only a few paler scattered hairs on the middle of the crown and nose.
Dr. Murie represents the skull of a nearly full-grown male and of a female nearly of the same age (P. Z. S. 1869, p. 103. f. 1, 2) . ”

“ The skins of the Fur-Seal are much used in China, and are more or less the fashion in this country, sometimes being far more expensive than at others. The skins of the Hair-Seals are only used, like the skins of the Earless Seals or Phocidæ, for very inferior purposes, as covering boxes, knapsacks, &c.; but the animals are much sought after for the oil they afford. ”

“ Abbott’s Fur-Seal from the Falkland Islands shows that it was a very young animal, which had only developed its first grinders, the permanent series being developed below them. The tentorium is bony and well developed. The teeth are the same in position and number as they are in the adult skull; and the upper ones, as far as developed, are small and conical, except the fifth upper grinder, which is largest, triangular, with a single subconical lobe on the base of the hinder edge of the cone. ”

“ I had the skulls of these species figured in the ‘Proceedings of the Zoological Society’ for 1859, and this greatly extended the knowledge of the animals. But there is yet much to be learnt respecting them. We do not know the species of Fur-seal described by Forster as inhabiting the coast of New Zealand.
The skull of these animals changes so much in form as the animal arrives at adult and old age that it is not always easy to determine the species by it, unless you have a series of them, of different ages and states, to compare. ”

“ The teeth show that it is young.
The figure and description of the Petit Phoque of Buffon have had the following names given to them:—
Little Seal, by Pennant and Shaw. Phoca pusilla, Schreber, Säugeth. 314 (Peters) . Phoca parva, Bodd. Elench. 78. Otaria pusilla, Desm. N. Dict. Otaria Peronii, Desm. Mamm.
Fischer, in his ‘Synopsis,’ under Phoca pusilla, p. 252, gives the Cape of Good Hope and Rotteness Island, on the coast of Australia, as the habitat of the species.
The description of Cuvier much more nearly fits that of the young Arctocephalus nigrescens from the Falkland Islands. ”

“ Stenorhynchus leptonyx (Sea-leopard) , Abbott, P. Z. S. 1868, pp. 192 & 527.
Inhab. Falkland Islands (Abbott, Lecomte) .
This Seal appears to extend from the Antarctic seas to New Zealand, the shores of New South Wales, and the Falkland Islands.
2. Lower jaw moderate. The three front upper and first front lower grinders single-rooted; the rest two-routed.
9. LOBODON.
Lobodon, Gray, Cat. Seals & Whales, p. 8; Gill, l. c. p. 10.
3. Lower jaw very weak. Front grinder in each jaw single-rooted; the rest two-rooted.
10. LEPTONYX.
Leptonyx, Gray, Cat. ”

“ How the cormorants dive and fish in it, how the gull tears at the drifted carcase of its kind, how the puffins, in ceaseless flight between ocean and their myriad burrows, arch and dome it in! Oh, it is a fine apartment! Its portals on either side are columns of spouting foam, and beyond lies the wild, houseless sea. A seal's dormitory!—how well do the wild things choose! So here, at once, one learns something different to what one is told. Seals care nothing about tides when they can get great slanting slabs that lie high and dry above them. ”

“ True solitude should imply no fleas.
During the time that this large bottle-nosed seal was away, a small common one—the same that lies on the rock in this sea-pool every day from before it is uncovered to the flowing in of the tide—came and disported himself—as usual I had said, but it was not quite the same. He first began to dive and reappear, at regular intervals, as does the great one, and I soon found that he was behaving like him in all things, even to the standing on end in the water, like a peg-top, with his nose straight up in the air. ”

“ Nothing, I resolved, should pass me unawares, and the faintest hint should be welcomed and followed up. But as one covert after another was tried and proved empty of result, I began in the course of years to despair, and to wonder whether the Black Seal were the sole relic of some race that had vanished from the world and left no other trace of its existence,—had perished, in fine, as Atlantis is said to have done, in some great cataclysm, its secrets perhaps drowned beneath the ocean or moulded into the heart of the hills. ”

“ As for the personal appearance of the sealers, as they labour at the work of slaughter, they look the most ruffianly set of men in existence. They are dressed in the queerest caps and coats of various shapes, with smuggler-looking breeches and long boots; moustaches and beards are covered with a mass of frozen tobacco-juice, hoar-frost, and Seal’s blood. Their matted hair, gory, greasy, unwashed faces and hands, reek and smell with a strong taint of butchery. ”

“ The county court therefore had no authority to issue bonds for a greater amount, and any bonds issued in excess of that amount were unlawful and void. By the statute, the bonds were to be in such sums, and payable at such times, as the county court should determine. The county court ordered that the bonds should be executed and made payable, $50,000 in five years, $50,000 in ten years, $75,000 in fifteen years, and $75,000 in twenty years, and that the bonds should be signed by the judge and the clerk of the county court, and have the seal of the county impressed on each. ”

“ His silhouette stood out distinctly in the gloom, and although I saw not his countenance I knew well that it was my enemy Purvis—the man who held my love in bondage.
Back at the Manor I found everything prepared for siege. Seal was not a man to stand idle if there was any chance of a scrimmage. Like all giants in strength, he loved fighting. His hesitation to face Black Bennett had now entirely disappeared, and over his rum that night he expressed a most fervent hope that the “white-livered swabs,” as he termed them, would appear in the secret passage. ”

“ Seals always associate in parties, which may comprise hundreds of individuals. The young, which are beautiful little creatures, are tenderly and affectionately nurtured by their parents, who protect them from danger by every means in their power.
Young seals have a coat quite different from that of the adult; this baby coat in the case of the second British species, the grey seal (Halichærus grypus) , being wholly white. In colour, the common seal varies greatly, the coat being sometimes yellowish and sometimes light grey with blackish mottlings and marblings. ”

“ I well remember the first seal I shot. I had landed on the weather-side of a small island. A cautious reconnoitring discovered a good-sized seal ‘lying up’ on a detached rock. Then I commenced the stalking, closely followed by my dog. But ere I could approach within range, one of those seal-sentinels and provoking tormentors of the seal-hunter, a herring gull, set up his wild warning scream. The seal perfectly understood what it meant, at once took the alarm, plunged into the water, and disappeared. ”

“ Probably, therefore it can catch fish in both. In regard to the female of the great seal, Dr. Edmondstone says, "The skin is of a paler colour, more or less patched with darkish blue, and becomes lighter with age. In two aged individuals, of different sexes, the one appears a pale grey, and the other black." There were no patches whatever on the skin of my bottle-nosed seal, as I first called it, but a uniform "pale grey" describes it pretty well. I have called it a uniform silver, and so, indeed, it looked; but pale grey and silver come pretty close to one another. ”

“ At length, with a mighty yawn and stretch, he turns full upon his vasty stomach, and immediately, by virtue of the different appearance which his fur has when wet or dry, becomes a much smaller seal that « 326 » has climbed up upon a buoy—the lower, wet part of him looks like that; the upper, alone, is himself. Then gradually he soaks all over, till he is, again, huge and indivisible, a great, naked, blue, greasy, oiled bladder,—yet firm still, as though he grew to the rock. ”

“ After sinking down—down—nobody knows how far, they at length reached a door, which, being open, led them into a range of apartments, filled with inhabitants—not people, but seals, who could nevertheless speak and feel like human folk; and how much was the seal-killer surprised to find that he himself had been unconsciously transformed into the like image! If it were not so, he would probably have died, from the want of breath. The nature of the poor fisher’s thoughts may be more easily conceived than described. ”

“ I was going away, rather disappointed at my having been called in merely to count a number of marks on the black seal, when suddenly there flashed into my mind what I had read in the morning.
"But, Professor Gregg," I cried, breathless, "the seal, the seal. Why, it is the stone Hexecontalithos that Solinus writes of; it is Ixaxar."
"Yes," he said, "I suppose it is. Or it may be a mere coincidence. It never does to be too sure, you know, in these matters. Coincidence killed the professor." ”

“ And there, in a smaller room, he found a great brown seal lying on a bed of pale pink sea-weed, with a gaping wound in his side.
"That is my father," said his guide, "whom thou wounded this morning, thinking that he was one of the common seals who live in the sea, instead of a Merman who hath speech, and understanding, as you mortals have. I brought thee hither to bind up his wounds, for no other hand than thine can heal him."
"I have no skill in the art of healing," said the seal catcher, astonished at the forbearance of these strange creatures, whom he had so unwittingly wronged ”

“ I knew that I should find in Jervase Cradock something of the blood of the "Little People," and I found later that he had more than once encountered his kinsmen in lonely places in that lonely land. When I was summoned one day to the garden, and found him in a seizure speaking or hissing the ghastly jargon of the Black Seal, I am afraid that exultation prevailed over pity. I heard bursting from his lips the secrets of the underworld, and the word of dread, "Ishakshar," the signification of which I must be excused from giving. ”

“ Our spectioneer was one of the best and bravest seamen ever I sailed with, and one of the most modest of men. I remember laughing once when he told me that he would as soon fight a bear with a seal-club as a bladder-nosed seal. I did not know much about this species of seal then. I believe there is some Irish blood in the brute, for at any time, whether in the water or out of it, he will as soon fight as not, and woe be to you when he cocks his crest if you have only a club, and no rifle wherewith to defend yourself! ”

“ It is the peculiar shape of this stripe of light colour stretching over head and neck which has given it the name of ‘Cowled Seal,’ and perhaps the appellation ‘Counsellor Seal,’ which I find is also applied to it, may have been suggested from a fancied resemblance to a barrister in his wig.” The males and females differ in colour, the latter being lighter in tint. The white neck-spot, it is suggested, distinguishes the males. The “pups” are born black, and have an abundant coat of soft fur which diminishes with age, and in the old animal is entirely wanting. ”

“ But after all, any phocine ambition, either for extinction or higher evolution, may be an empty thing; because the seal is very comfortable as he is. Consider a few of his [Pg 137] advantages. He has a very fine fur overcoat, with an admirable lining of fat, which, as well as being warm, permits any amount of harmless falling and tumbling about, such as is suitable to and inevitable with the seal's want of shape. He can enjoy the sound of bagpipes, which is a privilege accorded to few. Further, he can shut his ears when he has had enough, which is a faculty man may envy him. ”