SEALS LIKE SONGS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29055, 18 November 1959, Page 12

SEALS LIKE SONGS

Mozart Or Hymns But Not Jazz I New Zealand Press Association) (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, Nov. 17 An article in “The Times’’ from a correspondent who attracted grey Atlantic seals around him by singing songs on the coast of Wales, has brought half a dozen letters from others who have had similar experience of seals’ love of music—or noise, as one writer put it. The actor, Sir Donald Wolfit, said he spent a whole week’s holiday singing to seals on Loch Carron in the western highlands, accompanying himself by rhythmically tapping his walking stick on a rock. Six or seven seals would always gather for an hour’s session. They preferred Hebridean songs, traditional settings of Shakespeare’s songs and some of the better music hall tunes. If he changed to modern jazz they dived and disappeared. A Londoner, Hugh Clausen, recalled experience he had of long peaceful summer evenings in Scapa Flow with the Grand Fleet lying at anchor during World War I. “When the ship’s band played on deck, the seals would appear with their heads well out of the water evidently listening, as when the band stopped playing they would usually go down again. It seemed to link up with some old Highland legends.” Another correspondent found seals liked hymns, nursery songs and Mozart, but if the same tune was repeated too often they got bored ft»nd swam away.