“Open the mouth and there are large, sharp, dog-like teeth. A gray moustache ornaments the upper lip, outdoing Victor Emmanuel’s in length, and sweeping down upon the breast. At the back of the round head are two small, pointed, drooping ears. The neck and shoulders are very large and heavy; the tail is merely an apology for a tail, being but four inches long. The seal has four limbs or flippers. The front flippers are hairless, blue black, ten inches broad at the body, eighteen inches long, and taper to a point. There are no fingers, and the arm and the forearm are embraced in the body, and hidden under the skin and blubber. In fact, the flippers are only hands, the arm part remaining enclosed in the covering of the chest. These fore flippers are used as feet, the seal stepping on them with alternate up and down movements, and carrying his head three feet from the ground, in an erect and graceful attitude. “The hind flippers are very odd. They are much longer than the front ones, light, slender, and ribbon-like; they look like a pair of empty, wrinkled, black kid gloves. They are twenty-two inches long, and at a little distance from the ends have each three strong nails. The heels are horny and projecting, and on them the seal rests the hinder part of the body, for the upper part of these hind flippers, bones, and joints are embraced in the body, as are the fore limbs. At every other step the seal pauses and gives his hind flippers a sidewise fling, as if to keep them out of harm’s way. “Having slowly walked up the beach, this seal, who is an adult male, seats himself and surveys the ocean, his front flippers hang idly down, but he fans himself in the most comical style with his long, ribbon-like, hind flippers. He is exceedingly fat; under his skin lie several inches of blubber, and well it is for him that he is so provided, for now that he has come out of the water, he will not return there nor taste food or drink for the next three or four months.[82] All the time that he is on land he maintains an absolute fast. In the water his food is fishes, crustaceans, and squids,[83] of which he eats enormous quantities.” “But the fur!” cries Catherine, “the fur! I see nothing on this beast like my lovely, soft, dark cloak. This creature is covered with coarse gray hair.” “Step a little closer, my Catherine, and let us examine into this important matter. The seal wears two coats: the outer one is this coarse, grizzly hair, the inner one is a short, close, soft, elastic, silky fur. This fur is darkest on the back and shoulders, lightest on the flanks and breast. This adult male seal does not have that glossy nut-brown, or that delicate light gray or cream-colored fur which belongs to young seals, and to the females, and which presently we shall see prepared for your use.