Moby Dick

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explained the wonder.

Those rocky islands the ship had passed were the resort of great numbers
of seals, and some young seals that had lost their dams, or some dams
that had lost their cubs, must have risen nigh the ship and kept company
with her, crying and sobbing with their human sort of wail. But this
only the more affected some of them, because most mariners cherish a
very superstitious feeling about seals, arising not only from their
peculiar tones when in distress, but also from the human look of their
round heads and semi-intelligent faces, seen peeringly uprising from
the water alongside. In the sea, under certain circumstances, seals have
more than once been mistaken for men.

But the bodings of the crew were destined to receive a most plausible
confirmation in the fate of one of their number that morning. At
sun-rise this man went from his hammock to his mast-head at the fore;
and whether it was that he was not yet half waked from his sleep (for