SEAL SKI X JACKET AT HOME 293 



the Seal sleeps so soniidly tliat 1 have crept up and 

 pulled his whiskers before he awoke. In August the 

 houies break up, all is in an uproar, and the 'choo-choo- 

 ehoo ' cfdl of the female sounds loud above the surf, 

 though it is December before the last male has left for 

 the winter feeding-grounds. 



"The Fur SeaFs brother, the Sea Lion, haunts these 

 same islands, though he is hunted elsewhere with Otter 

 spears and guns. He is useful chiefly to the natives of 

 the Aleutian Islands, giving them all that the Walrus 

 yields the Eskimo. 



'' The California Sea Lion looks much like a male 

 Seal, but his neck is straight and thinner and his front 

 flippers are cased in mittens without even a thumb, 

 while the Seal, you see by the picture, wears shoi-t- 

 flngered gloves. This Sea Lion wears no fur, but is 

 covered with short hair, which varies in color with the 

 season from yellow to dark brown. His AT)ice is a deep 

 lion's roar that can be heard above the storm, and his 

 food is almost like the Seal's, — fish, shell-fish, crabs, 

 and a few sea-l)irds. His flesh is not l)ad eating, and 

 the fat and blul)ber are wuthout the evil smell that 

 makes the Seal so sickening to handle. 



" This Sea Lion is shy, keener of eye and ear than 

 the Sea Bear, and must be hunted l)y moonlight, the 

 driving season being early autumn. When the Lions 

 awake suddeidy, like the Seals they start to escape the 

 way they hap})en to face, some going seaward, the 

 others being slowly driven up to the villages, for they 

 can only cree[) and hobble along, and they have none of 

 the cleverness of the Fur Seal. These also we Avill 

 leave at tlie killing grounds ; to follow them would only 



