MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 103 



young seals (as I was informed by the natives, my own observations 

 ending in August) stop to rest a few days on the Aleutian Islands, and 

 at Ounalaska the natives obtain several hundred skins annually.* 



* The following remark?, quoted from Captain Weddel's " Voyage towards the South 

 Pole" (p. 137, August, 1827), show how closely the southern fur seal (Ar otocephalus 

 falklandicus) resembles the northern fur seal in habits and general economy: — 



" Nothing in this class of animals [the seals], and more particularly in the fur seal of 

 Shetland, is more astonishing than the disproportion in the size of the male and female. 

 A large grown male, from the tip of the nose to the extremity of the tail, is six feet nine 

 inches, whilst the female is not more than three feet and a half. This class of males is 

 not, however, the most numerous; but being physically the most powerful, they keep 

 possession of the females, to the exclusion of the younger branches; hence, at the time 

 of parturition, the males may be computed to be as one to twenty [females], which shows 

 this to be, perhaps, the most polygamous of large animals. 



" They are in their nature completely gregarious; but they flock together and assem- 

 ble on the coast at different periods and in distinct classes. The males of the largest 

 size go on shore about the middle of November to wait the arrival of the females, which 

 of necessity must soon follow, for the purpose of bringing forth their young. These, in 

 the early part of December, begin to land ; and they are no sooner out of the water than 

 they are taken possession of by the males, who have many serious battles with each 

 other in procuring their respective seraglios; and by a peculiar instinct they carefully 

 protect the females under their charge during the whole period of gestation. 



" By the end of December, all the female seals have accomplished the purpose of 

 their landing. The time of gestation may be considered twelve months, and they seldom 

 have more than one at a time, which they suckle and rear apparently with great affec- 

 tion. Ey the middle of February the young are able to take to the water; and after 

 being taught to sicim by the mother, they abandon them on shore, where they remain 

 till their coats of fur and hair ai - e completed. During the latter end of February, what 

 are called the dog-seals go on shore: these are the young seals of the two preceding 

 years, and such males as, from their want of age and strength, are not allowed to attend 

 the pregnant females. These young seals come on shore for the purpose of renewing 

 their annual coats, which being done by the end of April, they take to the water, and 

 scarcely any are seen on shore again till the end of June, when some young males come 

 up and go off alternately. They continue to do this for six or seven week«, and the 

 shores are then abandoned till the end of August, when a herd of small, young seals of 

 both sexes come on shore for about five or six weeks; soon after they retire to the 

 water. The large male seals take up their places on shore, as has been before described, 

 which completes the intercourse all classes have with the shore during the whole year. 



" The young are at first black ; in a few weeks they become gray, and soon after 



obtain their coat of hair and fur I have estimated the female seal to be. in 



general, at its full growth-wifhin four years, but possibly the male seal is much lo 

 very likely five or six years; and some which I have contrasted with others of the same 

 size could not, from their very old appearance, be less than thirty year- " 



[For further information in respect to the habits of the Pinnipedes in general, the 

 reader is referred to Dr. Robert Hamilton's " Natural History of the Amphibious Car- 

 nivora," etc. (1839), which forms the eighth volume of the Mammalia of Jardine's " Nat- 



