destructive humanity, and he accordingly proposes legislation to render it a penal offence to destroy the young seals or the mothers during the nursing season. It is estimated that the total number of Great Grey Seals in Scottish waters has been reduced to less than 500, and that in English and Irish waters the total is even less. It has often been desired by naturalists that a check should be put by the Legislature upon the wanton destruction of the common seal, as well as of the grey seal. It is certainly a regrettable result of the increased visitation of our remote rocky shores by holiday-makers, so-called "sportsmen" and thoughtless ruffians of all kinds, that the large, and perfectly harmless, grey seal is likely to be exterminated. In former times in these islands, as to-day in more northern regions, there was a regular "seal fishery," and vast numbers of seals were annually slaughtered for the sake of their skins and fat. The fur of both our native species, though differing vastly from the soft under-fur of the fur-seals, or Otariæ, of the North Pacific--which belong to a different section of the seal group, having small external "ears," and hind feet which can be moved forward and used in walking--is yet largely used for making gloves and thick overcoats. To-day the number of British seals killed and brought to market is so small that no local fishery interests would suffer were all protected by the law during the spring and summer, when breeding and the rearing of the young is in progress. There is even less reason for objecting to the protection of the larger and rarer "Great Grey Seal," which, unless it had been placed under the shelter of an Act of Parliament, would in five or six years have ceased to be a denizen of the British Islands.