In those days (as it happened) there was little understanding or care at "the Gardens" as to the feeding of an exceptional young animal like my little seal. It is possible to treat cow's milk so as to render it suitable to a young carnivore, much as it is "humanized" for the feeding of human babies, and I was willing to pay for a canine foster-mother were such procurable. I had then to leave London in order to preside over one of the sections of the British Association's meeting at Southport, and intended to take complete charge of my baby seal upon my return. But in less than a week the neglectful guardians at Regent's Park had killed him with stale cow's milk. I believe such a foundling would have a better chance there to-day, but the rearing of young mammals away from their mother is, of course, a difficult and uncertain job.
I do not regret having taken the baby seal from Pentargon Cove, for I undoubtedly saved him from a violent death, whilst his mother would soon recover from the loss due to my action--a loss to which she and her fellow "grey seal-mothers" must be not unfrequently exposed from other causes. I do regret, however, that it did not occur to me until too late that it would have been a wonderful experience to lie quietly on the shore some few yards from the baby seal, as the sun set, and then to see and hear the great seal-mother--7 or 8 feet long--swim into the cove, raise her gigantic bulk on the shore, and heave herself across the pebbles to her eager child. To witness the embraces, caresses, and endearments of the great mysterious beast would have been a revelation such as a naturalist values beyond measure. And so I hope, with all my heart, that Mr. Lyell will succeed in his good work of protecting the Great Grey Seal.
IN August when so many people are either shooting or eating that delectable bird--the grouse--a few words about him and his kind will be seasonable. "Grouse" is an English word (said to have meant in its original form "speckled"), and by "the" grouse we mean the British red grouse, which, though closely related to the willow grouse, called "rype" (pronounced "reepa") in Norway--a name applied also to the ptarmigan--is one of the very few species of birds peculiar to the British Islands. The willow-grouse turns white in winter, and is often called the ptarmigan, which it is not, though closely related to it. The willow-grouse inhabits a sub-arctic zone, which extends from Norway across the whole continent of Europe and Asia, and through North America, from the Aleutian Islands to Newfoundland. The red grouse does not naturally occur beyond the limits of the British Islands. It does not turn white in winter, and the back of the cock bird is darker in colour, as is also the whole plumage of the hen bird, than in the willow-grouse. The red grouse lives on heather-grown moors; the willow-grouse prefers the shrubby growths of berry-bearing plants interspersed with willows, whence its name. No distinction can be discovered in the voice, eggs, build, and anatomical details of the two species. The red grouse and the willow-grouse were, at no very distant prehistoric period, one species, but the race which has become isolated in these islands has just the small number of marked differences which I have mentioned, and it breeds true, and therefore we call it a distinct "species." In Scotland, the red grouse is called "muir-fowl," and a century ago was almost invariably spoken of in England as moor-fowl, or moor-game. It is found on moors from Monmouthshire northward to the Orkneys, and inhabits similar situations in Wales and Ireland.