1899] THE HABITS OF THE NORTHERN FUR SEAL aa 
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 7 covtu. 
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 eases 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 AM. 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 1.265 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 1.355 Pm. 
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 im 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 pm. The behaviour of the cow to the bachelor 
