[22] Praised be the Lord, however, I have fired but one shot, and that missed.
One other remark of Dr. Edmondstone in relation to the rock-seeking habits of seals is at variance with what I observed in my two little bays. He says, "The favourite rocks on which they rest are almost always observed to have deep water round them, are comparatively clear from seaweed, and under water at full tide." Now, the favourite rock on which my seals rested rose to, perhaps, a dozen feet above high tide before it became unscalable, and, to that height, it was regularly ascended by some or other of its occupants. In other respects it conformed to the requirements stated, for the water round it was fairly deep, and above the high-water line—where alone the seals lay—it was entirely bare of seaweed. Other rocks, however, which were habitually resorted to, were by no means so, and many of these were right in shore, where the water was anything but deep, though sufficiently so for the seals to swim at once, when they cast themselves off. The rock where the great seal always lay was a mass of seaweed, and I have mentioned having seen the common ones both play with, and help pull themselves up by, the long brown kind. I cannot help thinking, therefore, that seals do not exercise much choice in any of these respects, but are governed more by circumstances, selecting rocks which, on the whole, they find convenient, and which may be now of one kind, and now another. As, however, rocks which are never submerged are, when accessible at all, always so, these ought, one would think, to possess a great advantage, supposing the seals to have no prejudices in this respect. I do not, myself, believe that they have, and the seal-rocks which I passed in the steamer were such as to support this view.
Putting everything together, I believe that, both in respect to the rocks on which they lie, and the times at which they lie on them, the one and only law by which seals are governed is the law of practicability. It is a very good law, and I wish I had always been governed by it too—I mean beforehand.