HABITS. 363 



intelligence of expression, those of no other animal can be com- 

 pared. The lids are well supplied with eyelashes. 



" I do not think that their range of vision on land, or out of the 

 water, is very great. I have had them (the adults) catch sight 

 of my person, so as to distinguish it as a foreign character, three 

 and four hundred paces off, with the wind blowing strongly 

 from them toward myself, but generally they will allow you to 

 approach very close indeed, before recognizing your strange- 

 ness, and the pups will scarcely notice the form of a human 

 being until it is fairly on them, whereupon they make a lively 

 noise, a medley of coughing, spitting, snorting, blaating, and 

 get away from its immediate vicinity, but instantly resume, 

 however, their previous occupation of either sleeping or play- 

 ing, as though nothing had happened. 



" But the power of scent is (together with their hearing, be- 

 fore mentioned) exceedingly keen, for I have found that I would 

 most invariably awake them from soundest sleep if I got to the 

 windward, even when standing a considerable distance off. 



" To recapitulate and sum up the system of reproduction on 

 the rookeries as the seals seem to have arranged it, I would 

 say, that 



" First. The earliest bulls appear to land in a negligent, indo- 

 lent way, shortly after the rocks at the water's edge are free 

 from ice, frozen snow, &c. This is generally about the 1st to 

 the 5th of May. They land first and last in perfect confidence 

 and without fear, very fat, and of an average weight of five 

 hundred pounds ; some staying at the water's edge, some going 

 away back, in fact all over the rookery. 



" Second. That by the 10th or 12th of June, all the stations 

 on the rookeries have been mapped out, fought for, and held in 

 waiting for the cows by the strongest and most enduring bulls, 

 who are, as a rule, never under six years of age, and sometimes 

 three, and even occasionally four times as old. 



"Third. That the cows make their first appearance, as a class, 

 by the 12th or 15th of June, in rather small numbers, but by 

 the 23d and 25th of this month they begin to flock up so as to 

 fill the harems very perceptibly, and by the 8th or 10th of July 

 they have most all come, stragglers excepted ; average weight 

 eighty pounds. 



" Fourth. That the rutting-season is at its height from the 10th 

 to the loth of July, and that it subsides entirely at the end of 

 this month and early in August, and that it is confined entirely 

 to the land. 



