CHAPTER XXXI
AN ALL-DAY SITTING
ANOTHER all-day sitting with the seals. From the edge of the cliffs in the morning, and in the same pool by which I had sat all yesterday, I saw a creature which I at first thought was a seal of the common kind, then—for it began to look larger—that it was the bottle-nosed one, but which soon proved to be neither the one nor the other. In size it looked equal to Bottle-nose, if not even larger, but it had a magnificent skin, the whole of the under-surface, as well as the sides, being blotched and spotted black and white, like a leopard's or jaguar's, except that the markings are larger. In heaven's name, now, what creature is this? Can it be the sea-leopard that I have often read about, but of whose habitat, etc., I know nothing till I can look it up again?—the state of many a naturalist in regard to many a species, sometimes, perhaps, but shortly before he writes a treatise upon it. Upon coming down, now, and watching it closely, I see that in shape and general appearance—except for its wonderful skin—it is very like the bottle-nosed seal. Its body, however, is not so cylindrical, but bulges out into a greater roundness below the neck and shoulders, so that its weight may be somewhat greater. Its nose looks broader, and nearly, if not quite, as long.
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