THE WHITEWASHED SEAL.
How often those whom we think to be enemies prove friends or at the worst harmless, when knowledge increases : tout connaitre c'est tout pardonncr. Dr. Collinge has proved the utility of many score of suspected birds, and of birds such as the owls and hawks that " keepers " have been persecuting
from the earliest times. The latest enemy-turned-friend is the seal, an animal that has been rather mysteriously in- creasing on both the West and the East Coast ; but it is on the East that it has earned its notoriety, for fishing on the West is not the popular business it ought to be. Great numbers of them—to give a personal experience—gather to bask on the shallow sands that appear at low tide off the spit of the bird, sanctuary at Blakeney in Norfolk. Whenever the fisher- men have a bad time they abuse both the tern and the seal. The first, they say, is artificially protected without consider- ation of the poor fishermen ; and the seals are now so clever and cautious that their destruction grows more and more difficult. The terns have been more or less whitewashed, and in any event they will continued to be protected ; but the help of the. Ministry of Agriculture was asked and secured for the work of destroying seals. Happily the closest investi- gation of the feeding habits of the seals was made at the same time and the evidence of the anatomists of the victims is very much the same as Dr. Collinge's evidence from castings of owls. It is stated in set terms that the seals do not appear to eat many fish. It is good news, and doubtless true ; but Dr. Collinge's example ought to be followed to the end. He has told us of scores of species of birds just what they eat as well as what they do not eat. What are the principal foods of our seals ? The evidence about them is mostly
negative. * * * *
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