s to the left--nothing to interest a
well-informed seal; to the front--nothing; to the right everything is in
order, the weather is only so-so, but the rain keeps off, and there are
no signs of that dilatory person with the fish; so Tommy flops in again,
and becomes once more a floating patch, having conducted his little
airing with proper dignity and self-respect. Really, there is nothing
common in the manners of Tommy; there is, at any rate, one piece of rude
mischief which he is never guilty of, but which many of the more
aristocratic kinds of seal practise habitually. He doesn't throw stones.

[Illustration: FISH DIET.]

He doesn't look at all like a stone-thrower, as a matter of fact; but
he--and other seals--_can_ throw stones nevertheless. If you chase a
seal over a shingly beach, he will scuffle away at a surprising pace,
flinging up the stones into your face with his hind feet. This assault,
directed toward a well-intentioned person who only wants to bang him on
the head with a club, is a piece of grievous ill-humour, particularly on
the part of the crested seal, who can blow up a sort of bladder on the
top of his head which protects him from assault; and which also gives
him, by-the-bye, an intellectual and large-brained appearance not his
due, for all his fish diet. I had been thinking of making some sort of a
joke about an aristocratic seal with a crest on it--beside a fine coat
with no arms--but gave up the undertaking on reflecting that no real
swell--probably not even a parvenu--would heave half-bricks with his
feet.

[Illustration: INTEREST IN THE NEWS.]

All this running away and hurling of clinkers may seem to agree ill with
the longing after extermination lately hinted at; but, in fact, it only
proves the presence of a large amount of human nature in the composition
of the seal. From motives of racial pride the seal aspires to extinction
and a place beside the dodo, but in the spirit of many other patriots,
he wants the other seals to be exterminated first; wants the individual
honour, in fact, of being himself the very last seal, as well as the
corporate honour of extinction for the species. This is why, if he live
in some other part, he takes such delighted interest in news of
wholesale seal slaughter in the Pacific; and also why he skedaddles from
the well-meant bangs of the genial hunter--these blows, by the way,
being technically described as sealing-whacks.

[Illustration: "DAS VAS BLEASANT