Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/421

 It was now 8 We had four hours before the sun could be observed with advantage. I therefore advanced towards a large bay, which had hollowed itself out in the granite cliffs.

There, as far as we could see, the earth and ice fragments were absolutely covered with marine mammifers, and I looked involuntarily for Proteus, the mythological shepherd, who guarded Neptune’s immense flocks. The seals were most numerous. They formed distinct groups, males and females, the fathers watching the family, the mother suckling the young, some of which were sufficiently strong to walk a little. When any of the animals wished to move they went along by little jumps, due to the contraction of the body; and they helped themselves along awkwardly enough by means of their fin, which, as in the lamantine, their congener, forms a perfect forearm. In the water—their element—the spine is mobile, and they are admirably adapted for swimming, the skin being smooth and the feet webbed. When resting upon the ground their attitudes are extremely graceful. So the ancients, observing their expressive faces, soft looks, which even a beautiful woman cannot surpass, the clear and limpid eyes, their charming positions, and the poetry of their manners, metamorphosed the males into tritons and the females into sirens.

I called Conseil’s attention to the great development of the brain-lobes of these interesting animals. No mammal, except man, has such a development of cerebral material. Thus seals are capable of receiving a certain amount of education; they are easily domesticated, and I agree with some naturalists that, if properly taught, they could be easily utilised as fishing dogs.

The greater number of the seals were asleep on the rocks or on the sand. Amongst the seals proper, which have no