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SEA BEAR, OR URSINE SEAL.—Arclocéphalus ursvnus. 
is about forty to fifty on an average, it will be seen that the family must be very extensive 
when the young are added to their number. From one hundred to a hundred and twenty 
is not at all an uncommon number for a single family of Sea Bears. 
No family will allow the members of another household to crouch upon their territories, 
and it is very seldom that such an attempt is made. Sometimes, however, trespassers are 
detected, and then there is a general fight upon the beach, in which the animals of both 
sexes and all ages fight with great fury. They will not even permit a human being to 
encroach upon their territories, but advance upon him with such threatening cries and 
such menacing display of gleaming teeth that he is forced to make his escape as he best 
can. One traveller was so hard beset by these animals that he was fain to climb a rock 
which they could not surmount, and was watched by them for nearly six hours before he 
could make good his escape. 
Sometimes an old Sea Bear is seen lying alone in solitary state, not permitting any 
living being to approach him, and continually uttering low, savage growls. 
The males are very tyrannous in their behaviour to their wives, and treat the poor 
submissive creatures very cruelly. If a mother should happen to drop her cub as she is 
carrying it off, the male immediately turns upon her and bites her as a punishment for her 
offence. These animals seem to be very intelligent, and have a great varicty of intonations, 
by which they can express their meaning so clearly that their language can even be under- 
stood by human ears. Their general voice is something like the lowi ing of a cow, but 
when they are wounded, they utter long plaintive cries like that of a suffering dog. 
The food of this species consists of sea otters, small Seals, and other animals, which 
hold it in great terror, The Sea Bear, however, stands in considerable awe of the sea lion, 
and does not exercise the same indisputable sway as that animal. The name Arctocephalus 
is of Greek origin, and sienifies “ bear-headed.” 
