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Seal - LoveToKnow 1911 |
 | | SEAL, strictly speaking the name of the common European representative of that group of marine carnivorous mammals constituting the suborder Pinnipedia of the order Carnivora, but in a wider sense used to designate all the members of that group, except the walrus. |
 | | Seals feed chiefly on fish, of which they consume enormous quantities; some, however, subsist largely on crustaceans, especially species of Gammarus, which swarm in the northern seas, also on molluscs, seaurchins and even occasionally !sea-birds, which they seize when swimming or floating on the water. |
 | | Although the true seals do not possess the beautiful under-fur ("seal-skin" of the furriers) which makes the skin of the sea-bears or fur-seals so precious, their hides are still valuable as articles of commerce, and together with the oil yielded by their fat, subject them to a devastating persecution. |
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