A Fish or an Animal 159 



fed, the pup is very hungry. She hunts it up among the 

 pods of sleeping ones by calHng and smelHng over them. 

 The pup soon learns to know its mother's voice, and can 

 distinguish it among the thousands of others that are con- 

 stantly calling. She seems to recognize unerringly her pup's 

 call, and can always recognize him by smell. 



When the pups are from four to six weeks old they begin 

 to learn to swim in the little sheltered pools among rocks 

 off the rookery front. Swimming is an art the pup fur seal 

 must acquire by patient practice. Its principal difficulty in 

 learning to swim arises from the extraordinary size and 

 weight of its head as compared with the rest of its body. 

 In a few weeks it becomes expert and goes boldly out in 

 the breakers. Then it goes off on long journeys about the 

 islands, visiting neighboring rookeries and playing with the 

 pups on them. 



Early in August the discipline of the rookery finally 

 breaks up. The old bulls, which have become lean and 

 gaunt from their long fasting, go away to sea to seek food. 

 Then the bachelor herds flock into the rookery, and the older 

 ones assume the places of the bulls, rounding up harems of 

 cows which pay little or no attention to them. But soon 

 the novelty of the situation wears off, and the bachelors re- 

 sume their places again on the hauling grounds or take to 

 the sea. 



The food of the fur seal consists of fishes and squid, al- 

 ways of species that swim near the surface in the open sea. 

 Although the whole herd must devour millions of tons of 

 fishes every year, they do not touch to any considerable ex- 

 tent any species which has economic value. Their feeding 

 grounds are too far from the fishing banks for the interests 

 of man and beast to conflict. The squid comes first in their 

 bill of fare. Next comes the seal fish (Therobromus cal- 

 lorhini), a small smelt of the open sea, as yet known only 

 from thousands of fragments found in the stomachs of fur 

 seals. No one has yet seen a whole Therobromus. Next 



