Common seal

“ The Common Seal, a species frequently seen upon our northern coasts, measures from three to five feet in length, and is of a yellowish grey color, spotted with patches of brown. These animals are met with in greater numbers as we approach the Arctic seas, and afford the principal means of support to the Esquimaux of Labrador, and the inhabitants of the coast of Greenland. ”

“ Seal, the Great Seal, the Harp Seal, the Fetid Seal, and the Ursine Seal. The five last species are found on the shores of Greenland. The Great Seal grows to the size of ten or twelve feet; he is generally found resting upon cakes of floating ice, and resembles the Common Seal in his habits as well as in his appearance, but is readily distinguished by its size and its large beard-like whiskers. They are very timid, hence the Greenlanders are seldom able to trap them. The Esquimaux make ropes of the skins of this species. ”

“ In many respects, especially in their habits, they are distinguished by well-marked characteristics. The common seal is called in Shetland Tang-fish—that is, shore or bay seal; and the great seal is vernacularly the Haff-fish, or ocean seal. The male and female of both species are distinguished by the prefix ‘Bull’ and ‘She’—Bull-fish, She-fish.
The common seal is gregarious, and appears to be polygamous. In herds of from ten to a hundred they frequent the small uninhabited islands, holms, and skerries, where the tideways are strong, but the ocean swell not great ”

“ 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. ”

“ On land, this family (Phocidæ) lies on the belly, throws the hind feet back, and by a series of short jerking movements, so-called saltatory efforts, or a curious kind of dragging motion, grovels abdominally on the ground, the short fore-paws either pressed against the body, or, on rocky rougher ground, otherwise slightly aiding action. This movement of the Common Seal doubtless most people have witnessed, and it is quite unique not only amongst the Carnivora, but the whole of the Mammalia. In swimming, the Seals seldom use their fore feet, while the Otaries use them as powerful sweeps. ”

“ Seals are adepts in swimming and diving, and have the power of closing their nostrils and the apertures of their ears while under water, although they are unable to remain beneath the surface for anything like so long as whales and dolphins. The food of the common seal, as well as most other kinds, consists chiefly of fishes, for capturing and holding which their sharply cusped teeth are admirably adapted. Graceful and active as are their movements in water, on land they are comparatively awkward and ungainly ”

“ The common seal, which is frequently seen on the north coast of Scotland amongst the Hebrides and Shetland Islands, and the sea bear of Cape Horn and the Magellan Straits, are both very similar in their general habits to the Greenland seal of the Esquimaux; and the animals usually herd together in flocks or droves of some thirty to a hundred, each male having a certain number of females under his charge—the males being some six to eight feet long and the females of less dimensions. ”

“ What seal he is, scientifically, I know not, but he is certainly not the common one, for besides the pronounced difference in the shape of the head and face, colour and appearance of the fur, etc., he is much larger, the great barrel of the body being, perhaps, twice the size. The figure, too, though less human, is more buoy-like, increasing more rapidly, though very smoothly, from behind the head and below the chin, and tapering more abruptly towards the tail. ”

“ If the fish is caught by the tail, it is then turned head foremost and swallowed whole. They also feed under water and swallow with as much ease as in the air, but in a different manner, which is to open its mouth partially.
Seals are animals of passage; when on their travels or migrations, vast droves are [66] seen moving along through the openings of the ice, swimming with their heads always out of the water. They are very timid, seldom sleeping above five minutes at a time. Three of the common seal were taken a few years since on our coast in a net ”

“ The rock where the great seal always lay was a mass of seaweed, and I have mentioned having seen the common ones both play with, and help pull themselves up by, the long brown kind. I cannot help thinking, therefore, that seals do not exercise much choice in any of these respects, but are governed more by circumstances, selecting rocks which, on the whole, they find convenient, and which may be now of one kind, and now another. ”

“ How it has escaped them that we must have a common ancestor with the seal, I know not. And yet it is a well-ascertained fact that the brain of a seal in size and general appearance more nearly resembles that of man than does the brain of any other animal; and look at the position and appearance of a seal's head when he comes to the surface of the water: can anything more closely resemble the head of a man in like circumstances? ”

“ The common one of our northern coasts has much more lost the typical mammalian form, and become much more like a fish, to look at, than several species that are moving in the same direction, amongst them the fur-bearing seal that is skinned alive to keep ladies here warm, whilst the Japanese in Manchuria wear sheep-skins. ”

“ Seals differ from all other animals in having the toes of the feet included almost to the end in a common integument, converting them into broad fins armed with strong non-retractile claws. Of the many varieties of the seal family, from Kamchatka comes the noisy “Sea-lion” (Otaria jubata) , so called from his curious mane. In the same neighbourhood we get the “Sea-leopard” (Leptonyx weddellii) , and the “Sea-bear” (the Etocephalus ursinus) , whose larger and better-developed limbs enable him to stand and walk on shore. ”

“ The so-called grey seal is generally much darker in colour, but is best distinguished from the common species by its greatly superior size and its relatively larger and blunter teeth.
All seals are polygamous, which leads to fights among the males for the possession of the females; but in other respects they are gentle and affectionate, easily tamed if taken young, and displaying great capacity for education. As a rule, only a single cub is produced at a birth, but there may be twins. ”

“ III, fig. 1. One of the most distinctive features of these seals is the double-forequartered animal, a feature which occurs again on the button-shaped seals [85] of the period intervening between the Sixth and the Twelfth Dynasties. This does not appear to be an Upper Egyptian motif, but one common to the Delta and to an early civilization of Western Asia.
Fig. 25.
IMPRESSION FROM A CYLINDER-SEAL IN THE BERLIN MUSEUM.
Another distinctive feature of these early cylinder seals is a curious bow-legged figure of a man, which is found also on the button-shaped seals [86] of a later date. ”

“ When performing seals are exhibited at a circus sitting on chairs, catching balls on the points of their noses and playing diabolo with them, or balancing billiard cues on their snouts, and doing other miraculous things, they are always sea-lions, not common seals. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Also, though he often pegtops it, he has never yet pointed his nose straight up into the sky, which my bottle-nosed seal invariably does. Generally he soon adopts the horizontal attitude, and continues in it for the rest of the time he is up. When he goes down, he rolls round, as well as over—by which I mean both like a porpoise and like a barrel—and then his spotted, or rather blotched, belly makes a splendid mosaic under the water, for it is not only itself, which were enough of beauty, but the most lovely glaucous green is flung upon it, through which, all glorified, the pattern appears. ”

“ The captain was equally anxious to get some seal-skins, and he told us that, after we had visited the wreck, and explored the island, we should try and catch some of the animals.
Seals are curious-looking creatures. The head, with its large mild eyes, and snout, and whiskers, looks like that of some good-natured, intelligent dog; and one expects, as they are swimming, to see four legs and a thin curly tail come out of the water. Instead of that, the body narrows away till there is seen a tail like that of a fish. ”

“ When the herds enter Bering Sea, about the end of June, nearly every female seal is with young. After the long voyage of two or three thousand miles through the heavy, boisterous waters of the North Pacific, they are naturally tired when they reach these breeding-grounds, and iii a condition in which they are an easy prey to the unscrupulous hunter. Even if every such female seal which is killed were secured, it is clear that two seal lives would be destroyed for the sake of a single sealskin. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The round, plump, expressive face of a seal, the beautiful, limpid eyes, the hand-like fore-paws, the sleek body, tapering towards the flattened hinder fins, which are directed backwards, and spread out in the form of a broad fin, like the tail of a fish, might well give the idea of an animal having the anterior part of its body human and the posterior half piscine.
In the habits of the seals, also, we may trace those of the supposed mermaid, and the more easily the better we are acquainted with them. All seals are fond of leaving the water frequently. ”

“ It seems funny to be looking over a ledge, all day long, and to eat one's lunch whilst so doing. But I just look up to make my notes, and on looking down again, almost right under me, I see a seal hanging lazily in this quiet shore-pool of the sea; for to-day there is hardly a foam-line round the stacks and rocks. ”

“ Their bed-times are not governed by the ebb and flow of the sea.
The larger seal which I spoke of yesterday is called here, locally, a bottle-nosed seal, or at least some so designate it. He is here again to-day, rising at intervals and staring at the sky, in the other of these two-in-one-contained bays, which seems to be more particularly his own. When he rises he remains for a full minute standing upright, as it were, in the water, with his muzzle about six inches above it and pointing straight into the sky. ”

“ This was a delightful experience to the ferryman, and the sight of the dog-like creature swimming after the boat was also an entertainment to the passengers and a cause of surprise to many. But there was nothing remarkable in its action; the seal, like the dog, is a social creature; it is well known that he readily grows tame towards, and even attached to, the human beings he is accustomed to see who do not persecute him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The animal famous for yielding the valuable fur, called seal-skin, is not a true seals but a kind of sea-lion with ears and more flexible limbs. The true seals have no external ears and their hind limbs are closely united together, being useless on land but very effective in water. The hind limbs of the sea-lions are separated, and are used by the animal when on land. All kinds of seals come on the land or on ice in great numbers during the breeding-season. The true seals vary from four to eight feet in length. Their fur is stiff, and they lack the woolly under fur of the fur-seals. ”