THE FUR SEAL: SLEEPING HABITS. 89 



SLEEPING SEALS. I com<> now to speak of another feature which interested me nearly, if not 

 quite, as much as any other characteristic of this creature; anil that is their fashion of slumber. 

 The sice]) of the Fur Seal, seen on land, from the old male down to the youngest, is always acenm 

 paiiied by an involuntary, nervous, muscular twitching and slight shifting of the flippers, together 

 with ever and anon quivering and uneasy rollings of the body, accompanied by a quick folding 

 anew of the fore-flippers; all of which may be signs, as it were, in fact, of their simply having 

 nightmares, or of sportiug, in a visionary way, far off in some dream-land sea; but perhaps very 

 much as an old nurse said, in reference to the smiles on a sleeping child's face, they are disturbed 

 by their intestinal parasites. I have studied hundreds of such somnolent examples. Stealing 

 softly up, so closely that I could lay my hand upon them from the point where I was sitting, did 

 I wish to, and watching the sleeping Seals, I have always found their sleep to be of this nervous 

 description. The respiration is short and rapid, but with no breathing (unless the ear is brought 

 very close) or snoring sound; the quivering, heaving of the thinks only indicates the action of the 

 lungs. I have frequently thought that I had succeeded in finding a snoring Seal, especially among 

 the pups; but a close examination always gave some abnormal reason for it; generally a slight 

 distemper, never anything severer, however, than some trifle by which the nostrils were stopped 

 ii] i to a greater or less degree. 



The cows on the rookeries sleep a great deal, but the males have the veriest cat-naps that can 

 be imagined. I never could time the slumber of any old male on the breeding grounds, which 

 lasted without interruption longer than live minutes, day or night; while away from these places, 

 however, I have known them to lie sleeping in the manner I have described, broken by these fitful, 

 nervous, dreamy starts, yet without opening the eyes, for an hour or so at a time. 



With the exception of the pups, the Fur Seal seems to have very little rest awake or sleeping; 

 perpetual motion is well nigh incarnate with, its being. 



Fuu-SEAL PUPS. As 1 have said before, the females, soon after landing, are delivered of their 

 young. Immediately after the birth of the pup (twins are rare, if ever) the little creature finds its 

 voice, a weak, husky bhial, and begins to paddle about with its eyes wide open from the start, in a 

 confused sort of way for a few minutes, until the mother turns around to notice her oll'spiing and 

 give it attention, and still later ro suckle it; and for this purpose she is supplied with four small, 

 brown nipples, almost wholly concealed in the fur, and which are placed about eight inches apart, 

 lengthwise with the body, on the abdomen, between the for"- and liind-tlippers, with about four 

 inches of space between them transversely. These nipples are seldom visible, and then faintly 

 seen through the hair and fur. The milk is abundant, rich, and creamy. The pups nurse very 

 heartily, almost gorging themselves, so much so that they often have to yield up the excess of what 

 they have taken down, mewling and puking in the most orthodox manner. 



The pup from birth, and for the next three months, is of a jet-black color, hair and flippers, 

 save a tiny white patch just back of each forearm. It weighs first from three to four pounds, and 

 is twelve to fourteen inches long. It does not seem to nurse more than once every two or three 

 days, but in this I am very likely mistaken, for they may have received attention from the mother 

 in the night, or other times in the day when I was unable to keep up my watch over the individuals 

 which I had marked for this supervision. 



The apathy with which the young are treated by the old on the breeding-grounds, especially 

 by the mothers, was very strange to me, and 1 was considerably surprised at it. I have never seen 

 a seal-mother caress or fondle her offspring; and should it stray to a short distance from the hare . 

 I could step to and pick it up, and even kill it before the mother's eye, without causing her the 

 slightest concern, as far as all outward signs and manifestation would indicate. The same indilfcr- 



