1899] THE HABITS OF THE NORTHERN FUR SEAL 31 



tried to prevent her leaving, in exactly the same manner as a mature 

 bull would have done. These proceedings went on in water, in which 

 both animals were practically afloat, and occurred at the edge of the patch 

 of seals lying nearest to the land, and not far from the large bulls. The 

 female was obviously in heat, since she allowed the bachelors to play 

 with her. Several other small bachelors were constantly loitering about 

 while the larger one was in coitu. 



On the same day I saw another quite small bachelor trying to 

 mount a female at another part of the same rookery, but she seemed 

 to object, and a bull eventually drove him off. Later on I saw the 

 bachelor in the shallow water annoying other females. 



Such occurrences I afterwards saw frequently, the bachelors being 

 in some cases actually smaller than the cow they attempted to cover, 

 and only recognisable by their voice and for other reasons. In all 

 such cases the bachelors behaved exactly as would have a large bull 

 under the same circumstances, trying to keep the cows close to them in 

 order to be able to cover them again. In some cases I saw cows which 

 were certainly in heat escape from bachelors and pass right under the 

 bull's nose without being covered, the bull's attention being too much 

 taken up with other cows to notice them. 



The same thing went on also at Kishotchnaya, where I first 

 noticed it also on the 30th June. On the 2nd July I watched the 

 harems of the two large bulls at Kishotchnaya (already alluded to) con- 

 tinuously from 11.55 a.m. to 4.8 p.m., and during this time the bull 

 numbered I. was observed in coitu twice and the bull numbered II. 

 four times. Yet during a good part of that time a young and quite 

 small bachelor was among the fifty-two odd cows of which the latter 

 bull's harem was on that day composed. At 1.26^- p.m. this young- 

 bachelor was covering one of the cows, my attention being attracted to 

 the fact, as on the previous days, by the peculiar voice of the bachelor. 

 The affectionate way in which the cow treated the bachelor made it 

 certain that she was in heat, yet although the bull came up close to 

 them, and even " nosed " the bachelor, the latter's presence and actions 

 did not seem to arouse his suspicions, and the bull paid no other 

 attention whatever to him. Presently the cow left the bachelor, and 

 at 1.30 p.m. the bull covered her himself, finishing at 1.35^- p.m. 

 Meanwhile the little bachelor was in a state of great excitement and 

 displayed a very great deal of interest in the proceedings, several 

 times jumping up on the side of the bull. The bull, however, as 

 before, paid absolutely no attention to him. At 2.5 p.m. this bull 

 was again seen in coitu, and meanwhile another cow " nosed " him 

 a little. At 2.13 p.m. this latter cow was mounted by apparently the 

 same young bachelor right under the bull's nose. The bull paid no 

 attention whatever to this poaching in his harem, but moved to 

 the other end of his domain, while the little bachelor went on riding 

 the cow until 2.21 p.m. The behaviour of the cow to the bachelor 



