The senses of the seal are highly developed. The eye, for instance, is full and globular, and thus specially adapted to catch every ray of light when the animal is in the water. It is noteworthy that seals can shed tears under the influence of excitement, and especially when in pain. And the idea of the ancients that these animals are attracted by music and singing appears to be founded on fact.
Their usual cry is a sharp bark, but when angered they give vent to dog-like snarlings. Seals always associate in parties, which may comprise hundreds of individuals. The young, which are beautiful little creatures, are tenderly and affectionately nurtured by their parents, who protect them from danger by every means in their power.
Young seals have a coat quite different from that of the adult; this baby coat in the case of the second British species, the grey seal (Halichærus grypus), being wholly white. In colour, the common seal varies greatly, the coat being sometimes yellowish and sometimes light grey with blackish mottlings and marblings. The so-called grey seal is generally much darker in colour, but is best distinguished from the common species by its greatly superior size and its relatively larger and blunter teeth.
All seals are polygamous, which leads to fights among the males for the possession of the females; but in other respects they are gentle and affectionate, easily tamed if taken young, and displaying great capacity for education. As a rule, only a single cub is produced at a birth, but there may be twins.
THE ELK
(Alces machlis)
ALTHOUGH the elk can claim an easy superiority in the matter of size over all the other members of the deer tribe, it certainly cannot be accorded a high position in the scale of beauty. For, truth to say, it is an ugly and ungainly creature, with disproportionately long legs, and huge head terminating in a broad, flabby, and almost trunk-like muzzle. By the sportsman, however, it is held in high estimation, owing to the magnificent trophies formed by its great spreading antlers, which in Alaskan specimens may have a span of as much as six feet. And when the build of the elk is considered in relation to its mode of life, we see that what appears ugly and ungainly to our eyes is merely adaptation to a particular mode of life. For in summer the elk spends much of its time wading belly-deep in marshes and lakes in search of the water-plants which form a large proportion of its food at this season; and in this pursuit its long limbs must obviously be of the greatest advantage, while the broad and mobile muzzle is specially well adapted for gathering in the floating leaves and stalks. Possibly the almost wholly hairy extremity of the muzzle is another adaptation to the same end. The elk typifies the wading type among mammals just as much as does the flamingo among birds.
Like many other mammals of northern Europe, the elk has a circumpolar distribution, although most Transatlantic naturalists regard its American representatives in the light of a distinct species rather than as local races.
In common with the brown bear, the elk attains its maximum stature in Alaska, where it towers to a height of close on seven feet at the shoulder. At one time an inhabitant of the British Isles, the elk is still found in many parts of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and is abundant in Scandinavia; from these countries its range extends eastward through Poland and Russia, and thence across the whole of Siberia. On the other side of Bering Strait it reappears in Alaska, whence it ranges through British Columbia to Maine and other parts of the United States. The differences between the elk (or moose, as it is there called) of the United States and the typical elk of Scandinavia are so slight that it requires an expert to distinguish between the two.
It is, however, very noteworthy that certain Scandinavian elk never develop the huge expansions, or “shovels,” which form the most characteristic feature of the antlers of the species, but carry only five simple tines; and in east Siberia this simpler type of antler seems to be very prevalent.