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Show 668 MR. J. W. CLARK ON EARED SEALS. [Dec. 7, Let us now compare the description by John Reinhold Forster to which reference is so frequently made*. March 31, 1773. [Cook had landed at Dusky Bay, 5 days previously.] Fig. 8. . Otaria forsteri, nasal bones. P H O C A URSINA, L. (Drawing Gf.) Seal with ears; hands free; feet webbed on the under surface, naked between the fingers, hardly nailed. This species of Seals, in my opinion, most nearly resembles Phoca ursina ; but it is much smaller, and differs in a few points. Its habits are gregarious : males, females, and cubs live together on rocks surrounded by the sea in Dusky Bay. They are timid, and fling themselves off the rocks into the sea at the approach of man ; the older animals, however, if wounded, or surrounded so completely that escape is impossible, bite tbe weapons with which they are attacked ; nay, more, they venture to attack, in the water, the boat that is pursuing them. They swim with such rapidity under water, that a boat rowed by six strong men can scarcely keep up with them. They are extremely tenacious of life; for after they had been pierced by ball in many places, and even through the head, they yet conti- * Descriptiones Animalium, ed. Lichtenstein, 8vo, Berlin, 1844, p. 64. t " Figura picta G." This refers to the drawings by his son, described below p. 671. |