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Rh the surface, held horizontally. Another moment, and his back makes a bent bow in the water, as with a rolling motion, something like that of a porpoise, he dives and vanishes. He always makes for a great mass of brown seaweed clothing the rocks, now covered, where I had first seen him lying, and extending down into the depths. In this I lose him, but whether he stays there or merely coasts along it I cannot tell; but he always rises in about the same spot, and this suggests that he comes each time from the same place. Seals may, perhaps, lie upon the bottom, under the overarching edges of the rocks they bask on at low water, and wound amongst the seaweed that grows on them; but their sleep, if they slept, would be broken.

I took out my watch and measured the time this great seal stayed under water, finding it to be, on an average, from ten to twelve minutes, his longest submersion being fourteen minutes and a half. I then thought I would descend the cliffs and get along the shore to just opposite where he usually came up, which would be very near him. This I easily managed, concealing myself once, when I knew that he would rise, and going on again as soon as he was down. When he next came up I had the satisfaction of beholding him from some dozen or twenty yards. He was considerably larger than the common seal, his skin perfectly naked and of a bluish colour, which, with the breadth of his back, gave him something the appearance of a hippopotamus in the water. This was when