76 NATURAL HISTORY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



On the other side of the flipper the skin is entirely bare, from its outer extremity up to the 

 body connection; it is sensibly tougher and thicker than elsewhere on the body; it is deeply and 

 regularly wrinkled with seams and furrows, which cross one another so as to leave a kind of sharp 

 diamond-cut pattern. When they arc placed by the animal upon the smoothest rocks, shining and 

 slippery from algoid growths and the sea-polish of restless waters, they seldom fail to adhere. 



When we observe this Seal moving out on the land, we notice that, though it handles its foic 

 feet in a most creditable manner, it brings up its rear in quite a different style ; for. after every second 

 step ahead with the anterior limbs, it will arch its spine, and in arching, it drags and lifts up, and 

 together forward, the hind-feet, to a fit position under its body, giving it in this manner fresh 

 leverage for another movement forward by the fore-feet, in which the spine is again straightened 

 out, and then a fresh hitch is taken upon the posteriors once more, and so on as the Seal progresses. 

 This is the leisurely and natural movement on laud, when not disturbed, the body all the time 

 being carried clear of and never touching the ground. But if the creature is frightened, this method 

 of progression is radically changed. It launches into a lope, and actually gallops so last that the 

 best powers of a man in running are taxed to head it off. Still, it must be remembered that it cannot 

 run far before it sinks trembling, gasping, breathless, to the earth; thirty or forty yards of such 

 speed marks the utmost limit of its endurance. 



The radical difference in the form and action of the hind-feet cannot fail to strike the eye 

 at once ; they are one-seventh longer than the fore-hands, and very much lighter and more slender; 

 they resemble, in broad terms, a pair of black kid gloves, flattened out and shriveled, as they lie 

 in their box. 



There is no suggestion of fingers on the fore-hands; but the hind-feet seem to be toes run into 

 ribbons, for they literally flap about involuntarily from that point where the cartilaginous processes 

 unite with the phulangeal bones. The hind-feet are also merged in the body at their junction with 

 it, like those anterior; nothing can be seen of the leg above the tarsal joint. 



The shape of the hind-flipper is strikingly like that of a human foot, provided the latter were 

 drawn out to a length of twenty or twenty-two inches, the instep flattened down, and the toes run 

 out into thin, membraneous, oval-tipped points, only skin-thick, leaving three strong, cylindrical, 

 grayish, horn-colored nails, half an inch long each, back six inches from these skinny toe-ends, 

 without any sign of nails to mention on the outer big and little toes. 



On the upper side of this hind-foot the body-hair comes down to that point where the meta- 

 tarsus and phalangeal bones join and fade out. From this junction the phalanges, about six inches 

 down to the nails above mentioned, are entirely bare, and stand ribbed up in bold relief on the 

 membrane which unites them as the web to a duck's foot; the nails just referred to mark the ends 

 of the phalangeal bones, and their union in turn with the cartilaginous processes, which run 

 rapidly tapering and flattening out to the ends of the thin toe-points. Now, as we are looking at 

 this Fur Seal's motion and progression, that which seems most odd, is the gingerly manner (if I may 

 be allowed to use the expression) in which it carries these hind-flippers; they are held out at right 

 angles from the body directly opposite the pelvis, the toe-ends or flaps slightly waving, curled, and 

 drooping over, supported daintily, as it were, above the earth, the animal only suffering its weight 

 behind to fall upon its heels, which are themselves opposed to each other, scarcely five inches apart. 



We shall, as we see this Seal again later in the season, have to notice a different mode of pro- 

 gression and bearing both when it is lording over its harem, or when it grows shy and restless at 

 the end of the breeding season, then faint, emaciated, dejected ; but we will now proceed to observe 

 him in the order of his arrival and that of his family. His behavior during the long period of 

 fasting and unceasing activity and vigilance, and other cares which devolve upon him as the most 



