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Show 1904.] GREY SEAL AT VARIOUS STAGES OF GROWTH. 379 of the boat, who saw that they were of equal size and as yet too small to take to the water*. When the young Grey Seal is about 28 weeks old its pelage begins to fade rapidly until, by the beginning of April, it is often of a pale uniform straw-colour, with the back-spottings of undetermined brown. At this stage it loses its second coat of hair, and the third pelage commences to appear. This third pelage is more pronounced in colour, and gives indications of the coat that the iinimal will eventually assume when adult, but the old hair often changes to most extraordinary colours just before shedding. I have seen immature skins of 26 weeks old with hair of russet, dark brown, green, yellow, blue-grey without spots, blue-grey heavily spotted with black, neutral tint, and creamy white. The commonest type, however, of both males and females at this age is pale grey back, turning darker towards the crown, yellow under parts, muzzle and flippers, and with dark grey spots on the back. Such a variety of tints is not to be found in any animal except Ursus arctos. On reaching the thii'd pelage most of these strange colour-tints vanish, and we find the young Grey Seal about 4 feet 6 inches in length, and 90 to 100 lbs. in weight, and evincing the dappled, grey, black, or light-grey types of adult males and females respectively, although not yet in perfect completeness. At one year old the young Grey Seal, when in third pelage, has gained the white under parts with black spots, but has gained little in size after the fourth moult to the fourth pelage ; however, when the types become still more pronounced, they progress quickly, so that at two years the length of males is usually about 5 feet 6 inches, and weight from 12 to 14 stone. In each succeeding year additional weight is put on. At three years males measure 6 feet and over, and I do not think they are fully adult until the fifth year, at which age they are capable of entering the breeding-grounds and asserting their sex. Adults allow no immatures except those of one year old to come close to the rocks on which the females pup, and even these youngsters do not land until the breeding-season is over. The following papers were read :- * The reader will at once put the question, " H o w do you know that the regular black form, for it is a regular type of this Seal, is not always black from birth like this melanic pup ? " It is certainly a natural supposition, for without doubt this abnormal juvenile would have become a pure black adult; but, on the other hand, I must put forward the opinion that the black males must almost without exception have been once white pups, for I have seen two skins of 6 and 8 months old youngsters actually in a state of change from the light second youthful coat to the black adult. Moreover, such a thing as a black baby B.. gryphus of a few weeks old has only once been heard of in the big haunts of the Grey Seal, where hundreds of pups were annually slaughtered and where adult males of the black type occur about one in every 20 specimens. |