THE FUR SEAL: LEAPING HABITS. 103 



(Halichcsrus yrypux) as it bred ami rested on these rocks during an extended period of time. Among 

 many interesting notes as to the biology of this large Hair Seal, he says: " As a proof that they [the 

 Seals] fetch their food from a considerable depth, it is related that a few years ago a young one was 

 found caught by one of the hooks of a fishing line that was placed at a depth of between seventy 

 and eighty fathoms, on the outer side of the islands. Gray Seals have several times been seen to 

 come up to the surface with lings (Molva vulgaris) and other deep-water fishes in their mouths, 

 such fishes seldom or never found at a less depth than between sixty and seventy fathoms.'' 1 



CLASSING THE "HOLLTJSCHICKIE" BY AGE. When the "Holluschickie" are up on land they 

 can be readily separated into their several classes as to age by the color of their coats and size, 

 when noted, namely, the yearlings, the two, three, four, and five years old males. When the 

 yearlings, or the first class, haul out, they are dressed just as they were after they shed their pup- 

 coats and took ou the second covering during the previous year in September and October; and 

 now, as they come out in the spring and summer, one year old, the males and females cannot be 

 distinguished apart, either by color or size, shape or action ; the yearlings of both sexes have the 

 same steel-gray backs and white stomachs, and are alike in behavior and weight. 



Next year these yearling females, which are now trooping out with the youthful males on the 

 hauling-grounds, will repair to the rookeries, while their male companions will be obliged to come 

 again to this same spot. 



SHEDDING THE HAIR: STAGEY SEALS. About the 15th arid 20th of every August, they 

 have become perceptibly "stagey," or, in other words, their hair is "well under way iu shedding. 

 All classes, with the exception of the pups, go through this process at this time every year. The 

 process requires about six weeks between the first dropping or falling out of the old over-hair, and 

 its full substitution by the new. This takes place, as a rule, between August 1 and September 28. 



The fur is shed, but it is so shed that the ability of the Seal to take to the water and stay 

 there, and not be physically chilled or disturbed during the process of molting, is never impaired. 

 The whole surface of these extensive breeding-grounds, traversed over by us after the Seals had 

 gone, was literally matted with the shed hair and fur. This under fur or pelage is, however, so 

 fine and delicate, and so much concealed and shaded by the coarser over-hair, that a careless eye 

 or a superficial observer might be pardoned in failing to notice the fact of its dropping and renewal. 



The yearling cows retain the colors of the old coat in the new, when they shed it for the first 

 time, and from that time on, year after year, as they live and grow old. The yotiug three-year- 

 olds and the older cows look exactly alike, as far as color goes, when they haul up at first and dry- 

 out ou the rookeries, every .June and July. 



The yearling males, however, make a radical change when they shed for the first time, for 

 they come out from their "stagiuess" in a nearly uniform dark gray, and gray and black mixed, 

 and lighter, with dark ocher to whitish on the upper and under parts, respectively. This coat, 

 next year, when they appear as two-year-olds, shedding for the three-year-old coat, is a very much 

 darker gray, and so on to the third, fourth, and fifth season; then after this, with age, they begin, 

 to grow more gray and brown, with rufous-ocher and whitish-tipped over-hair ou the shoulders. 

 Some of the very old bulls change in their declining years to a uniform shade all over of dull- 

 grayish ocher. The full glory and beauty of the Seal's -moustache is denied to him until he has 

 attained his seventh or eighth year. 



COMPARATIVE SIZE OF FEMALES AND MALES. The female does not get her full growth and 

 weight until the end of her fourth year, so far as I have observed, but she does most of her 



' ROBERT COLLETT : On the Gray Seal. Proceedings Zoological Society London, part ii, 1861, p. 387. 



