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344. Here, no doubt, we have a very sensitive apparatus, of great use to the animal. The eyebrows seem represented either by three, or four, projecting hairs, like those of the whiskers, but shorter. One, however, is greatly longer than the other two—or three.

I have now noted all I can about this creature, which, I think, must be a female. Can it be the unmarked spouse of the great sea-leopard which was here once, but which I have never seen again? Both were in the pool together, and often quite near to one another, and, with the exception of their very different skins, looked very much the same animal. Though they did not converse, or frolic, with one another, yet I thought their very indifference had something conjugal about it—but this may have been imagination. But if they are really male and female of the same species, it seems curious that there should have been so much difference in the time that each remained under water. Of this, alone, I can be sure, that on one occasion, only, I saw at close quarters, and for a long time, a seal twice as large as the common one, and with a most magnificent skin, for which, and no other, reason I have called it the sea-leopard, not at all knowing its proper name.

The substance on the large seal's tail, which puzzled me, is, I think, connected with the parts adjoining, and this makes me conclude it to be a female, and that it may lately have had a young one, which, however, I have never seen with it. I can make