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Anecdotal and descriptive natural history
Anecdotal and descriptive natural history Author:A. Romer Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. . THE SEAL?THE COMMON SEAL?THE MARBLED SEAL THE GREENLAND SEAL THE ELEPHANT SEAL. JHE SEALS textit{(Phocce) comprise several species, a... more »ll characterised by short limbs, elongated and tapering body, very flexible spine, and smooth, close-lying fur. The tail is short and placed between the hind paws or flippers, which are directed backwards. "The paws of these animals/' says Mr. Martin, " though expressly made for swimming, are not, it is evident, so truly paddle-like as those of the whale or porpoise; the interior pair are plainly divided into strong toes, armed with nails and webbed; the posterior limbs are feeble, but the toes are still distinguishable, and serve as supports to a large extent of web, constituting an apparatus admirably adapted for propelling the animal through the water, and calling to mind the feet of the diver textit{(Colymbus) or great auk textit{(Alca impennis), both as to appearance and position/' Cuvier remarks that what the Seal loses of facility of motion on land, in consequence of the shortness of its limbs, is made up to it by the swimming power given by the mobility of the spine. Steller says of the Ursine Seals, " They swim with amazing swiftness and strength, even at the rate of eight miles an hour, andwhen wouuded in the water will seize on the boat, carry it along with great impetuosity, almost as if they were flying, and will often sink it." During the progression of Seals on land, the hind-feet are never employed, and the fore-feet not necessarily. When the Seal wishes to move forward, it bends underneath it the hinder part of its spine, so making a kind of arch, and then fixing this posterior portion, it suddenly straitens out the whole body in front, and in a repetition of this movement consists the very peculiar kind o...« less