2. Verbal Notice respecting the Remains of a Seal found at Portobello

Extract

Professor Allman called attention to some bones discovered by Dr Andrew Balfour in a clay field near Portobello, and forwarded by him for presentation to the Museum of Natural History. They prove to be bones of a seal, and consist of some vertebræ, a portion of a scapula, a radius, a femur, and a fibula. They thus afford an additional instance to the few already recorded, of the occurrence of phocine remains in the British Islands. The deposit in which they occurred appears to belong to the period of the boulder clay. They were found about 20 feet above the present level of highwater, and about 15 feet below the surface of the soil.