Seal (animal)

“ 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. ”

“ The seal is a gregarious and polygamous animal. It is never met with at a great distance from land, but frequents the bays and seas adjacent to the shore. It feeds promiscuously on most sorts of small fish, but chiefly on the spawn of the salmon. ”

“ If you have ever examined the head of a seal, with its large gentle eyes, you will readily believe that the animal possesses a certain amount of intellect, and is capable of very affectionate feelings.
The story I am about to tell you is a very sad one. Perhaps you will recollect the seal in the Zoological Gardens, which used to come out of its pond at the call of the French sailor to whom it belonged, and, climbing up while he sat on a chair, put its fins round his neck and give him a kiss. ”

“ This order embraces several species of the seal kind, which are found in all seas, but chiefly in those of the polar regions. Their structure is admirably adapted to their mode of life; the nostrils and ears both closing when the animal dives. Its hind feet alone are used for swimming. Its movements on land are slow and painful, dragging itself along like a reptile. ”

“ The seal is an amphibious animal: that is to say, it cannot take in water, but breathes and sleeps and brings forth on dry land-only close to the shore-as being an animal furnished with feet; it spends, however, the greater part of its time in the sea and derives its food from it, so that it must be classed in the category of marine animals. ”

“ 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 feet, however, which are furnished with strong claws, are of use in enabling the animal to climb out of the water over a rocky shore. For swimming, the Seal is admirably adapted; its long flexible body is shaped like that of a fish, tapering to the tail; and it is furnished with strong webs between the toes, so as to make the fore feet act as oars, and the hind feet, which the animal generally drags behind it like a tail, to serve as a rudder. The Common Seal lives generally in the water, and feeds entirely on fish ”

“ When one is seen lying near its hole, the native approaches as near as possible, say within 500 yards, when he lies down and crawls and wriggles the remainder of the distance. During this operation great care is taken not to excite the animal’s suspicion, and an advance is only made when the seal’s head is down. A seal appears to sleep in short naps, and raises his head every few minutes ”

“ It is nearly six feet long, and its fur is yellowish grey, sprinkled above with dark-brown spots. It has no exterior ear. To the inhabitants of the north the seal is a most useful animal; its flesh and fat form their chief food, with its oil they illuminate the long winter nights, its sinews they use as thread, from its bones they make various domestic implements, and with its fur they cover their tents and sledges. Seals are gentle animals, and when tamed exhibit great attachment to man. When wounded they snap savagely in all directions. ”

“ This seal is rather a formidable animal when it is enraged, for it is quite large when fully grown, and uses both its claws and its teeth in fighting. The male animals are very quarrelsome among themselves, and most desperate battles take place. ”

“ And would the seal respect you for it if you did? A dog shakes himself dry after a swim, and, if he be your own dog, he shakes the water over somebody else, which is sagacious and convenient; but a seal doesn't shake himself, and can't understand that wet will lower the value of any animal's caresses. Otherwise a seal would often be preferable to a dog as a domestic pet. He doesn't howl all night. He never attempts to chase cats—seeing the hopelessness of the thing. ”

“ The Sea-Lion, or Maned Seal, is an animal of gigantic size, measuring from fifteen to twenty feet in length, or even more; it is of a dull tawny color, and the neck of the male is covered with a sort of mane, composed of hair considerably longer and more crisp than that which covers the rest of the body. These formidable creatures are extensively distributed along the coasts of the Pacific ocean, more especially in the vicinity of the Straits of Magellan, and the neighboring 84islands. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This little spike of rock was a foot or so above the water, even when the sea swelled up towards it—it being not yet high tide—and as it projected out like a bowsprit, there was nothing underneath it for the seal's hind feet to get a hold on, so that everything had to be done by a first leap up from the sea. This leap the seal made over and over again, shooting up sometimes almost like a salmon—his hind feet alone remaining in the water—and grasping the hard little triangle between his fore-arms, or flippers, so as to assist the impetus by hoisting himself upon it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We lose sight, then, of the limbs, and see very little more than the feet, which are disguised by being turned into flippers.
Now if we once think what is the object of a seal’s life, this curious change in its body is at once explained. For seals are the hunters of the sea; fish-food is to them what flesh-food is to lions, wolves, and bears, only that they have a much wider field to hunt in, for they have the whole ocean306 for their feeding ground, and no one to dispute it with them but the sea-otter in places near the land, and the porpoises and other fish-feeding whales out at sea. ”

“ The white hair of the young seals—which, as already said, are born in June—is shed in a day or two, when the young take to the water. With regard to their reputed musical proclivities, some experiments made at the Zoological Gardens did not bear out this belief; but there is much evidence that in a state of nature they will approach and listen to music. The common seal has a large brain-capacity, and is a very intelligent creature. The upper parts of this seal are yellowish grey, spotted with black and brown, the under parts being silver-grey. ”

“ They lie on the grass, shut their eyes, and roll to and fro; they sit and fan themselves; they stretch out and gently comb themselves with the nails on their hind flippers; they take naps; they run races; they play leap-frog over each others’ backs, and snort and roar with great hilarity.
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“These young seals have the long, coarse over-hair, less gray than the big seals, and the soft, rich under-coat is silken and of a delicate brown color. The down and feathers on a duck’s breast are arranged much as the hair and fur on a seal. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A seal comes to its rock there before the tide has sufficiently gone down to let it lie upon it. It plays about the rock, fawns upon it, caresses it, woos it, one might say, dives down and circumnavigates it, tries or pretends to try to lie upon it, even under the water, swims away and returns, and does the same thing several times; and as soon as the water is sufficiently shallow to allow of it, it reclines, sea-washed and gently heaving, till the receding tide leaves it high and dry. A pretty thing it is—very—to see a seal thus waiting for its chosen rock to appear. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Seal belongs to the four-limbed mammiliferous animals. It is half quadruped, half fish. The head and general physiognomy, especially when seen in the water, resemble those of a dog. The limbs, which in the sea act as excellent paddles, are indifferent instruments of locomotion on land—the fore-paws are almost the only motive powers, the posterior portion of the body having to be dragged over the ground. The young are very obedient to the parent seals, and are obedient to, and recognize the voices of their dams amid the loudest tumult. ”

“ Birds have no ears, nor have crocodiles, nor frogs, nor snakes. Ears seem to be for beasts only. And not for all beasts. Seals are divided by naturalists into two great families—those with ears, and those without. The common seal belongs to the latter class, and the sea-lion to the former. A common seal lives in the sea, and when it does wriggle up on the beach of an iceberg there is nothing to hear, I suppose, or perhaps when it wants to listen it raises a flipper to its ear. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”