BIOLOGICAL PAPERS. 179 



NOTES ON THE FOOD HABITS OF CALIFORNIA SEA-LIONS. 



(Zalophus call for nianus LesBon.) 

 By L. L. Dyche, University of Kansas, Lawrence. 

 Read before the Academy, at Topeka, December 31, 1902. 



'T^HE following observations on the food habits of sea-lions were 

 ^ made during the months of June, July, August, and Septem- 

 ber, 1899. The region visited was that of Monterey bay, Califor- 

 nia, and the coast south of the bay for a distance of about twenty-five 

 miles. Point Pinos marks the southern point of entrance between 

 Monterey bay and the Pacific ocean. Within a radius of two or three 

 miles of this point most of the salmon fishing is done by the Monte- 

 rey fishermen. 



No. 1. June 25. Found old sea-lion cow dead on beach near Point 

 Pinos. Examined the stomach and found that it was full of the flesh 

 of small squids. Peaks, arms and the so-called pens of the squids 

 were common in the half-digested and half-decayed mass. 



No. 2. June 27. Found a dead sea-lion cow (bullet hole in her 

 head ) about one-half mile south of Point Pinos. Stomach full of 

 squids, many of them in good state of preservation. 



No. 3. June 27. This animal was found within a few rods of No. 

 2. It was a two- or three-year-old bull. It had been dead for some 

 time, as the hair was slipping. Stomach was full of the chewed-up 

 arms of an octopus or devil-fish. 



No. 4. June 30. About two miles south of Point Pinos found car- 

 cass of old bull sea-lion which had been washed upon the shore in a 

 mass of seaweeds. That part of the muzzle containing the whiskers 

 had been cut away. The penis bone had also been cut out. I was told 

 by fishermen that Chinamen valued these articles, and that they would 

 pay about five dollars for the whisker bristles of an old bull and the 

 same price for the penis bone. This animal had been dead some time. 

 There was a bullet-hole in its skull. Dissection showed that its 

 stomach was gorged with the flesh of a "giant squid," as the large 

 squids (weighing from twenty to forty pounds) of that coast are 

 called. There were pieces of flesh taken from the stomach as large 

 as my hand. 



No. 5. July 7. Found sea-lion cow at Point Pinos. Had been 

 washed ashore during the night. The only material found in the 

 stomach was a few parts of squid beaks and a bunch half as large as 

 one's fist, of the pens from the backs of squids. 



No. 6. July 9. Found a sea-lion cow dead on the beach near "seal 



