Volume 23, Plate III / Mammalia (Mammals)

Common Seal of the French Coast

Phoca vitulina

The Common Seal of the French coast, reckoned three to five feet long, bears a pale yellowish-grey ground clouded and spotted above with dark grey, the eyes, muzzle and lower body paler and almost white beneath. Its colour shifts markedly between wet and dry states, the moist silky hairs turning slatey grey and transparent while the dried coat appears chiefly yellowish, an oily black matter issuing from glands about the eyes and shoulders.