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The Seal

difficulty, if taken young, be familiarized to their keepers and instructed in various gesticulations. They are supposed to attain great longevity. The female is particularly attentive to her young, and scarcely ever produces more than two at a birth, which, after being suckled a fortnight on the shore, where they are always born, are conducted to the water, and taught by their dam the means of defence and subsistence; and when they are fatigued by their excursions, are relieved by being taken on her back. They distinguish her voice, and attend at her call. The flesh of seals is sometimes eaten, but they are almost always destroyed for their oil and skins. The latter are manufactured into very valuable leather, and the former is serviceable in a vast variety of manufactures .

A young seal will supply about eight gallons of oil. The smell of these animals, in any great number upon the shore, is highly disagreeable. In the month of October, they are generally considered as most valuable; and as they abound in extended caverns on the coast, which are washed by the tide , the hunters proceed to these retreats about midnight, advancing with their boat as far into the recess as they are able, armed with spears and bludgeons, and furnished with torches, to enable them to explore the cavern. They begin their operations by making the most violent noises, which soon rouse the seals from their slumbers, and awaken them to a sense of extreme danger, which they express by the most hideous yellings of terror. In their eagerness to escape, they come down from all parts of the cavern, running in a promiscuous and turbulent mass along the avenue to the water The men engaged in this perilous adventure oppose no impediment to this rushing crowd, but, as this begins to diminish, apply their weapons with great activity and success, destroying vast numbers, and principally the young ones. The blow of the hunter is always levelled at the nose of the seal, where a slight stroke is almost instantly fatal.

This leads us to the consideration of THE URSINE SEAL.- This animal grows to the length of eight feet, and to the weight of an hundred pounds. These are found in vast abundance in the islands between America and Kamschatka, from June till September, when they return to the Asiatic or American shores. They are extremely strong, surviving wounds and lacerations which almost instantly destroy life in other animais, for days, and even weeks. They may be observed, not mearly by hundreds, but by thousands, on the shore, each male surrounded by his females, from eight to fifty, and his offspring, amounting frequently to more than that number. Each family is preserved separate from every other.

The ursine seals are extremely fat and indolent, and remain, with little exercise, or even motion, for months together, upon the shore. But if jealousy, to which they are ever alive, once strongly operates, they are roused to animation by all the resentment and vengeance; and conflicts arising from this cause between individuals, soon spread through families, till at length the whole shore becomes a scene of the most horrid hostility and havoc. When the conflict is finished, the survivors plunge into the water, to wash off the blood, and recover from their exhaustion.

Those which are old, and have lost the solace of connubial life, are reported to be extremely captious, fierce, and malignant, and to live apart from all others, and so tenaciously to be attached to the station which pre-occupancy may be supposed to give eacn a right to call his own, that any attempt at usurpation is resented as the foulest indignity, and the most furious contests frequently occur in consequence of the several claims for a favourite position. It is stated, that in these combats two never fall upon one. These seals are said, in grief, to shed tears very copiously. The male defends his young with the most intrepid courage and fondness, and will often beat the dam, notwithstanding her most supplicat ing tones and gestures, under the idea that she has been the cause of the destruction or injury which may have occurred to any of them. The flesh of the old male seal is intolerably strong; that of the female and the young is considered as delicate and nourishing, and compared, in tenderness and flavour, to the flesh of young pigs. The bottle-nosed seal is found on the Falkland Islands; 18 twenty feet long; and will produce a butt of oil, and discharge, when struck to the heart, two hogsheads of blood. We shall close this chapter with an extract from the Public Journals of 1821, on AMERICAN NATURAL HISTORY. of 1821 , on AMERICAN NATURAL HISTORY.

On the unfrequented, solitary, remote banks of the Missouri, grows one of the most ornamental trees that adorn , grows one of the most ornamental trees that adorn creation-the Ten-petalled Bartonia. Its height is four feet; flowers , beautifully white, expand as the sun sets, and close at the approach of morning. - Shall we say that all things were made for the gratification of man only, when he is daily taught that some of the loveliest objects the world contains, he is destined never to behold? - Shall we believe that the sylvan natives are not formed with taste, and enjoy the scenery with which the great Artist has decorated their abode?

A Leopard was killed on the 6th day of June, 1820, by John Six, living on the waters of Green river, ten miles south-east , living on the waters of Green river, ten miles south-east of Hartford, in the Ohio county: length from the end of the nose to the buttock, five feet, and a tail two feet long; under