The seals and whales of the British seas

"The seals and whales of the British seas" by Thomas Southwell is a scientific natural history treatise written in the late 19th century. It presents an accessible, illustrated guide to the seals, walrus, and cetaceans found in or near British waters, emphasizing identification, distribution, habits, and the practical use of reliable figures over technical descriptions.

The opening of the volume explains its purpose: to fill a gap by gathering scattered records into a cheap, trustworthy manual (expanded from papers in Science Gossip), supplied with vetted illustrations, concise species notes, and references for advanced readers, plus acknowledgments to contemporary specialists. Southwell first outlines the two main groups—Pinnipedia and Cetacea—describing their families, diagnostic features, and adaptations, then sketches seal life histories and the industrial seal fisheries, with striking statistics from Greenland and Newfoundland and a frank critique of wasteful, cruel practices that prompted a close season. He proceeds to succinct accounts of British-occurring seals—the Common, Ringed, Greenland (Harp), Hooded, and Grey—and the Walrus, noting their appearances on British coasts, key traits for identification, and pressures from hunting. Turning to cetaceans, he summarizes anatomy, classification, and the British list, and begins the species section by questioning the Greenland Right-Whale’s place in the British fauna while introducing the distinct Atlantic Right-Whale of older Biscayan fisheries. (This is an automatically generated summary.)