A most intelligent group of creatures, some of which the compiler has watched in Yell Sound, close to Mossbank. He has even seen them once or twice in the Forth, close to the end of the pier. In the Zoological Gardens a specimen of the common seal proved for months a great source of attraction by its mild nature, and its singular form and activity. It soon died, and, had a coroner's jury returned a verdict, it would have been "Death from the hooks swallowed with the fish" daily provided. We have heard seal-fishers describe the great rapidity of the growth of seals in the Arctic seas. They seem in about a fortnight after their birth to attain nearly the size of their mothers. The same has been recorded of the whale order. Both seals and whales have powers of assimilating food and making fat that are unparalleled even by pigs. The intelligence of seals is marvellous. Many who visited the Zoological Gardens in the Regent's Park in May and June 1866 witnessed instances of this in a seal from the South Seas, recently exhibited in London. Persons on the sea-side might readily domesticate these interesting and truly affectionate creatures. Hooker's sea-bear, the species exhibited in London, was at first, so the kind Frenchman told us, very fierce, but soon got reconciled to him, and, when I saw it, great was the mutual attachment. It was a strangely interesting sight to see the great creature walk on its fin-like legs, and clamber up and kiss the genial-bearded French sailor.

Dr Adam Clarke on Shetland Seals.

In Shetland, Dr Adam Clarke tells us the popular belief is that the seals, or, as they call them, selkies, are fallen spirits, and that it is dangerous to kill any of them, as evil will assuredly happen to him who does. They think that when the blood of a seal touches the water, the sea begins to rise and swell. Those who shoot them notice that gulls appear to watch carefully over them; and Mr Edmonston assured him that he has known a gull scratch, a seal to warn it of his approach. Dr Clarke, in the second of his voyages to Shetland, had a seal on board, which was caught on the Island of Papa. He says:—"It refuses all nourishment; it is very young, and about three feet long; it roars nearly like a calf, but not so loud, and continually crawls about the deck, seeking to get again to sea. As I cannot bear its cries, I intend to return it to the giver. Several of them have been tamed by the Shetlanders, and these will attend their owners to the place where the cows are milked, in order to get a drink. This was the case with one Mr Henry of Burrastow brought up. When it thought proper it would go to sea and forage there, but was sure to return to land, and to its owner. They tell me that it is a creature of considerable sagacity. The young seal mentioned above made his escape over the gangway, and got to sea. I am glad of it; for its plaintive lowing was painful to me. We saw it afterwards making its way to the ocean."[145]

Dr Edmonston on Shetland Seals.

Every one familiar with seals is struck with their plaintive, intelligent faces, and any one who has seen the seals from time to time living in the Zoological Gardens must have been pleased with the marks of attention paid by them to their keepers. Dr Edmonston of Balta Sound has published in the "Memoirs of the Wernerian Society"[146] a graphic and valuable paper on the distinctions, history, and hunting of seals in the Shetland Isles. As that gentleman is a native of Unst, and had, when he wrote the Memoir, been for more than twenty years actively engaged in their pursuit, both as an amusement and as a study, we may extract two or three interesting passages.

He remarks (p. 29) on the singular circumstance that so few additions have been made to the list of domestic animals bequeathed to us from remote antiquity, and mentions the practicability of an attempt being made to tame seals; and also says that it is yet to be learned whether they would breed in captivity and remain reclaimed from the wild state. The few instances recorded in books of natural history of tame seals refer to the species called Phoca vitulina, but of the processes of rearing and education we have no details. "The trials," continues Dr Edmonston, "I have made on these points have been equally numerous on the great as on the common seal. By far the most interesting one I ever had was a young male of the barbata species: he was taken by myself from a cave when only a few hours old, and in a day or two became as attached as a dog to me. The varied movements and sounds by which he expressed delight at my presence and regret at my absence were most affecting; these sounds were as like as possible to the inarticulate tones of the human voice. I know no animal capable of displaying more affection than he did, and his temper was the gentlest imaginable. I kept him for four or five weeks, feeding him entirely on warm milk from the cow; in my temporary absence butter-milk was given to him, and he died soon after.

"Another was a female, also of the great seal species, which we captured in a cave when about six weeks old, in October 1830. This individual would never allow herself to be handled but by the person who chiefly had the charge of her, yet even she soon became comparatively familiar.

"It was amusing to see how readily she ascended the stairs, which she often did, intent, as it seemed, on examining every room in the house; on showing towards her signs of displeasure and correction, she descended more rapidly and safely than her awkwardness seemed to promise.

"She was fed from the first on fresh fish alone, and grew and fattened considerably. We had her carried down daily in a hand-barrow to the sea-side, where an old excavation admitting the salt water was abundantly roomy and deep for her recreation and our observation. After sporting and diving for some time she would come ashore, and seemed perfectly to understand the use of the barrow. Often she tried to waddle from the house to the water, or from the latter to her apartment, but finding this fatiguing, and seeing preparations by her chairman, she would of her own accord mount her palanquin, and thus be carried as composedly as any Hindoo princess. By degrees we ventured to let her go fairly into the sea, and she regularly returned after a short interval; but one day during a thick fall of snow she was imprudently let off as usual, and, being decoyed some distance out of sight of the shore by some wild ones which happened to be in the bay at the time, she either could not find her way back or voluntarily decamped.

"She was, we understood, killed very shortly after in a neighbouring inlet. We had kept her about six months, and every moment she was becoming more familiar; we had dubbed her Finna, and she seemed to know her name. Every one that saw her was struck with her appearance.

"The smooth face without external ears—the nose slightly aquiline—the large, dark, and beautiful eye which stood the sternest human gaze, gave to the expression of her countenance such dignity and variety that we all agreed that it really was super-animal. The Scandinavian Scald, with such a mermaid before him, would find in her eye a metaphor so emphatic that he would have no reason to borrow the favourite oriental image of the gazelles from his Caucasian ancestors.

"This remarkable expressiveness and dignity of aspect of the Haff-fish, so superior to all other animals with which the fishermen of Shetland were acquainted, and the human character of his voice, may have procured for him that peculiar respect with which he was regarded by those who lived nearest his domains, and were admitted to most frequent intercourse with him. He was the favourite animal of superstition, and a few tales of him are still current. These, however, are not of much interest or variety, the leading ideas in them being these: That the great seal is a human soul, or a fallen angel in metempsychosis, and that to him who is remarkable for hostility to the phocal race some fatal retribution will ensue. I can easily conceive the feeling of awe with which a fisherman would be impressed when, in the sombre magnificence of some rocky solitude, a great seal suddenly presented himself, for an interview of this kind once occurred to myself.

"I was lying one calm summer day on a rock a little elevated above the water, watching the approach of seals, in a small creek formed by frowning precipices several hundred feet high, near the north point of the Shetland Islands.

"I had patiently waited for two hours, and the scene and the sunshine had thrown me into a kind of reverie, when my companion, who was more awake, arrested my attention. A full-sized female haff-fish was swimming slowly past, within eight yards of my feet, her head askance, and her eyes fixed upon me; the gun, charged with two balls, was immediately pointed. I followed her with the aim for some distance, when she dived without my firing.

"I resolved that this omission should not recur, if she afforded me another opportunity of a shot, which I hardly hoped for, but which actually in a few moments took place. Still I did not fire, until, when at a considerable distance, she was on the eve of diving, and she eluded the shot by springing to a side. Here was really a species of fascination. The wild scene, the near presence and commanding aspect of the splendid animal before me, produced a spellbound impression which, in my sporting experience, I never felt before.

"On reflection, I was delighted that she escaped.

"The younger seals are the more easy to tame, but the more difficult to rear; under a month old they must be fed, and, especially the barbata, almost entirely on milk, and that of the cow seems hardly to agree with them.

"Perhaps their being suckled by a cow fed chiefly on fish, the giving them occasionally a little salt water, and then by degrees inducing them to eat fish, might be the best mode until they attained the age of being sustained on fish alone. In the barbata, to insure rapid taming, it appears to be necessary to capture them before the period of casting the foetal hair, analogous to what I have observed in the case of the young of water-birds before getting up their first feathers, and when they are entirely covered with the egg down.

"These changes seem connected with a great development of the wild habits, and attachment to, and knowledge of, the localities where they have first seen the light. As the barbata is until this period in reality a land animal, the chief difficulty we have to surmount with it is in the quality of the milk to be given it. The vitulina is essentially an inhabitant of the water from its birth, yet the care of the mother is perhaps for weeks necessary to judge how long and how often it should be on land, and this we can hardly expect to imitate. In the young of this species a few days old, which we have tried to rear, a want of knowledge of this kind of management may have led to failure. I have not attempted to rear them at a greater age.

"The Greenland seal is, I have been informed, occasionally kept for a month or two on board the whalers, and thrives sufficiently well on the flesh of sea-birds. This species appears to bring forth in January, and therefore it is subjected to captivity.

"I know but comparatively little of its capability of being easily tamed; but this quality, of itself, is no evidence of superior intelligence.

"Might it not be easy to induce Greenland shipmasters to bring some of these animals to England, where they would be accessible to the observation of zoologists.

"One mode of attempting to tame them might be to take half-grown animals in a net, or surprise them on land, and then keep them in salt-water ponds in a semi-domestic state: if any of them were pregnant when caught, or could be got to breed, the main difficulty would be overcome."

Long as these extracts are, they possess great interest as being derived from observations on living animals made by one who was a friend of the Duke of Wellington, and was always welcomed by him. His northern Island of Unst is a fine field for studying marine animals. The sweeping currents of the Arctic oceans bring creatures to the quiet voes and sounds. Shetland in spring, summer, and autumn is a favoured locality for the naturalist and painter.

The Walrus.

There was some likelihood, a few years ago, that a most attractive animal would be added to the collection of the Zoological Society. But, unfortunately for the public gratification, as well as the remuneration of the spirited captain who brought the creature, it reached the gardens in a dying state, and only survived a few days. But it is not the first of its family which has travelled so far to the southward. Nearly 250 years ago a specimen was brought alive by some of the Arctic adventurers, and excited no little surprise, as old Purchas tells us. It was in the year 1608, when "the king and many honourable personages beheld it with admiration, for the strangeness of the same, the like whereof had never before beene seene alive in England. Not long after it fell sicke and died. As the beast in shape is very strange, so is it of strange docilitie, and apt to be taught, as by good experience we often proved."

The figure which accompanies this paper was drawn from our late lamented visitor by Mr Wolf, who sketched it before its removal to the Zoological Gardens. Captain Henry caught it during a whaling expedition, and sent it to London. Though quite young, it was nearly four feet in length; and when the person who used to feed it came into the room, it would give him an affectionate greeting, in a voice somewhat resembling the cry of a calf, but considerably louder. It walked about, but, owing to its weakness, soon grew tired, and lay down. Unlike the seals, to which it is closely allied, the walrus has considerable power with its limbs when out of the water, and can support its bulky body quite clear of the ground. Its mode of progression, however, is awkward when compared with ordinary quadrupeds; its hind-limbs shuffling along, as if inclosed in a sack. In some future season, when a lively specimen reaches the Gardens, and is accommodated with an extensive tank of water, there is no reason why the walrus should not thrive as well as the seal, or his close, though not kind, neighbour of the North, the Polar bear.

The walrus, morse, or sea-horse (Trichechus rosmarus, Linn.[147]), is one of the most characteristic inhabitants of the Arctic regions. There it is widely distributed, and thence it seldom wanders. One or two specimens were killed on the shores of the northern Scottish islands in 1817 and 1825; but these instances seem hardly to admit of its introduction into our fauna, any more than West Indian beans, brought by the currents, are admissible into our flora. It is mentioned by some old Scottish writers[148] among our native animals, and at one time may have been carried to our coasts on some of the bergs, which are occasionally seen in the German Ocean after the periodical disruptions of the Arctic ice. Like the Polar bear, however, the walrus has evidently been formed by its Creator for a life among icy seas, and there it is now found often in large herds. Captain Beechey and other voyagers to the seas around Spitzbergen, describe them as being particularly abundant on the western coast of that inclement island. The captain says that in fine weather they resort to large pieces of ice at the edge of the main body, where herds of them may be seen of sometimes more than a hundred individuals each. "In these situations they appear greatly to enjoy themselves, rolling and sporting about, and frequently making the air resound with their bellowing, which bears some resemblance to that of a bull. These diversions generally end in sleep, during which these wary animals appear always to take the precaution of having a sentinel to warn them of any danger." The only warning, however, which the sentinel gives, is by seeking his own safety; in effecting which, as the herd lie huddled on one another like swine, the motion of one is speedily communicated to the whole, and they instantly tumble, one over the other, into the sea, head-foremost, if possible; but failing that, anyhow.

Scoresby remarks that the front part of the head of the young walrus, without tusks, when seen at a distance, is not unlike the human face. It has the habit of raising its head above the water to look at ships and other passing objects; and when seen in such a position, it may have given rise to some of the stories of mermaids.

There is still a considerable uncertainty as to the food of the walrus. Cook found no traces of aliment in the stomachs of those shot by his party. Crantz says that in Greenland shell-fish and sea-weeds seem to be its only subsistence. Scoresby found shrimps, a kind of craw-fish, and the remains of young seals, in the stomachs of those which he examined. Becchey mentions, that in the inside of several specimens he found numerous granite pebbles larger than walnuts. These may be taken for the same purpose that some birds, especially of the gallinaceous order, swallow bits of gravel. Dr Von Baer concludes, from an analysis of all the published accounts, that the walrus is omnivorous.[149] A specimen that died at St Petersburg was fed on oatmeal mixed with turnips or other vegetables; and the little fellow, who lately died in the Regent's Park, seems to have been fed by the sailors on oatmeal porridge.

One of the chief characteristics of the walrus is the presence of two elongated tusks (the canine teeth) in the upper jaw. According to Crantz, it uses these to scrape mussels and other shell-fish from the rocks and out of the sand, and also to grapple and get along with, for they enable it to raise itself on the ice. They are also powerful weapons of defence against the Polar bear and its other enemies.

The walrus attains a great size. Twelve feet is the length of a fine specimen in the British Museum. Beechey's party found some of them fourteen feet in length and nine feet in girth, and of such prodigious weight that they could scarcely turn them over.

Gratifying accounts are given of the attachment of the female to its young, and the male occasionally assists in their defence when exposed to danger, or at least in revenging the attack. Lord Nelson, when a lad, was coxwain to one of the ships of Phipps's expedition to the Arctic seas, and commanded a boat, which was the means of saving a party belonging to the other ship from imminent danger. "Some of the officers had fired at and wounded a walrus. As no other animal," says Southey, "has so human-like an expression in its countenance, so also is there none that seems to possess more of the passions of humanity. The wounded animal dived immediately, and brought up a number of its companions; and they all joined in an attack upon the boat. They wrested an oar from one of the men; and it was with the utmost difficulty that the crew could prevent them from staving or upsetting her, till the Carcass's boat (commanded by young Horatio Nelson) came up: and the walruses, finding their enemies thus reinforced, dispersed." And Captain Beechey gives the following pleasing picture of maternal affection which he witnessed in the seas around Spitzbergen: "We were greatly amused by the singular and affectionate conduct of a walrus towards its young. In the vast sheet of ice which surrounded the ships, there were occasionally many pools; and when the weather was clear and warm, animals of various kinds would frequently rise and sport about in them, or crawl from thence upon the ice to bask in the warmth of the sun. A walrus rose in one of these pools close to the ship, and, finding everything quiet, dived down and brought up its young, which it held to its breast by pressing it with its flipper. In this manner it moved about the pool, keeping in an erect posture, and always directing the face of the young towards the vessel. On the slightest movement on board, the mother released her flipper, and pushed the young one under water; but, when everything was again quiet, brought it up as before, and for a length of time continued to play about in the pool, to the great amusement of the seamen, who gave her credit for abilities in tuition, which, though possessed of considerable sagacity, she hardly merited."

The walrus has two great enemies in its icy home—the Polar bear and the Esquimaux. Captain Beechey thus graphically describes the manoeuvres of that king of the Bruin race, which must often be attended with success. The bears, when hungry, are always on the watch for animals sleeping upon the ice, and try to come on them unawares, as their prey darts through holes in the ice. "One sunshiny day a walrus, of nine or ten feet length, rose in a pool of water not very far from us; and after looking around, drew his greasy carcase upon the ice, where he rolled about for a time, and at length laid himself down to sleep. A bear, which had probably been observing his movements, crawled carefully upon the ice on the opposite side of the pool, and began to roll about also, but apparently more with design than amusement, as he progressively lessened the distance that intervened between him and his prey. The walrus, suspicious of his advances, drew himself up preparatory to a precipitate retreat into the water in case of a nearer acquaintance with his playful but treacherous visitor; on which the bear was instantly motionless, as if in the act of sleep; but after a time began to lick his paws, and clean himself, occasionally encroaching a little more upon his intended prey. But even this artifice did not succeed; the wary walrus was far too cunning to allow himself to be entrapped, and suddenly plunged into the pool; which the bear no sooner observed than he threw off all disguise, rushed towards the spot, and followed him in an instant into the water, where, I fear, he was as much disappointed in his meal, as we were of the pleasure of witnessing a very interesting encounter."

The meat of the walrus is not despised by Europeans, and its heart is reckoned a delicacy. To the Esquimaux there is no greater treat than a kettle well filled with walrus-blubber; and to the natives along Behring's Straits this quadruped is as valuable as is the palm to the sons of the desert. Their canoes are covered with its skin; their weapons and sledge-runners, and many useful articles, are formed from its tusks; their lamps are filled with its oil; and they themselves are fed with its fat and its fibre. So thick is the skin, that a bayonet is almost the only weapon which can pierce it. Cut into shreds, it makes excellent cordage, being especially adapted for wheel-ropes. The tusks bear a high commercial value, and are extensively employed by dentists in the manufacture of artificial teeth. The fat of a good-sized specimen yields thirty gallons of oil.—A. White, from "Excelsior."