260 EUMETOPIAS STELLERI STELLER's SEA LION. 



harem. The bulls fight savagely among themselves, and turn 

 off from the breeding-ground all the- younger and weak males. 



"The cow sea-lion is not quite half the size of the male, and 

 will measure from 8 to 9 feet in length, with a weight of four 

 and five hundred pounds. She has the same general cast of 

 countenance and build of the bull, but as she does not sustain 

 any fasting period of over a week or ten days, she never comes 

 out so grossly fat as the male or l see-catch.' 



u The sea-lion rookery will be found to consist of about ten 

 to fifteen cows to the bull. The cow seems at all times to have 

 the utmost freedom in moving from place to place, and to start 

 with its young, picked up sometimes by the nape, into the 

 water, and play together for spells in the surf- wash, a move- 

 ment on the part of the mother never made by the fur-seal, 

 and showing, in this respect, much more attention to its off- 

 spring. 



" They are divided up into classes, which sustain, in a gen- 

 eral manner, but very imperfectly, nearly the same relation one 

 to the other as do those of the fur-seal, of which I have already 

 spoken at length and in detail ; but they cannot be approached, 

 inspected, and managed like the other, by reason of their wild 

 and timid nature. They visit the islands in numbers compara- 

 tively small, (I can only estimate,) not over twenty or twenty- 

 five thousand on Saint Paul's and contiguous islets, and not 

 more than seven or eight thousand at Saint George. On Saint 

 Paul's Island they occupy a small portion of the breeding- 

 ground at Northeast Point, in common with the Callorhinus, 

 always close to the water, and taking to it at the slightest dis- 

 turbance or alarm. 



" The sea-lion rookery on Saint George's Island is the best 

 place upon the Seal Islands for close observation of these ani- 

 mals, and the following note was made upon the occasion of 

 one of my visits, (June 15, 1873 :) 



" 'At the base of cliffs, over 400 feet in height, on the east 

 shore of the island, on a beach 50 or 60 feet in width at low 

 water, and not over 30 or 40 at flood-tide, lies the only sea-lion 

 rookery on Saint George's Island some three or four thousand 

 cows and bulls. The entire circuit of this rookery-belt was 

 passed over by us, the big, timorous bulls rushing off into the 

 water as quickly as the cows, all leaving their young. Many 

 of the females, perhaps half of them, had only just given birth 

 to their young. These pups will weigh at least twenty to 



