INABILITY TO SWIM. 107 



The young seals at birth are very helpless. They can not swim and 

 seem to have no desire to learn. When they are 

 six or seven weeks old, if the beach on which they Harry N. Clark, p. 160. 

 lie slopes down very gradually to the water and 



the waves roll in on it, they will voluntarily commence to paddle about 

 and finally get afloat without particular urging from the older seals, 

 but if the rocks are abrupt at the water's edge the old ones mush push 

 them over into the sea or seize them by the neck, as a mother cat 

 handles her kitten, and drop them into the water before they will learn 

 to swim. In such cases the " pups " often struggle to get back upou 

 land. 



A pup does not go into the water until he is three or four months 

 old, and then lie works in gradually from the 



puddles into the surf, and I have seen "clap Geo. Comer, p. 598 (Ant- 

 matches" in stormy weather pickup their pups arctic.) 

 in their mouths and carry them out of reach of the 

 waves. 



A pup when first born can not sustain itself in 

 the water and would unquestionably perish. ■ DaU > p ' 23- 



Once, in the month of June, I caught a seal that had a pup in it. I 

 carefully cut the pup out of its mother and placed it in the water and it 

 drowned. I have often cut pups out of the mother 

 seal and tried to rear them, but in two or three Ellabush, p. 385. 

 days it would sicken and die. 



When first born a pup can not swim, and does not learn so to do 

 until it is six or eight weeks of age. It is there- 

 fore utterly impossible for a pup to be born in the Saml. Falconer, p. 161. 

 water and live. I have noticed that when a pup 



of this age is put in the water it seemed to have no idea of the use of 

 its flippers, and was very much terrified. A pup is certainly for the 

 first six or eight weeks of its life a laud animal, and is in no sense 

 amphibious. 



The pups are born soon after the arrival of the cows, and they are 

 helpless and can not swim, and they would drown if put into water. 

 The pups do not learn to swim until they are six 

 or eight weeks old, and after learning they seem j„ . Fratis, p. 108. 

 to prefer to be on the land. 



A pup seal until it is six weeks or two months old never goes into 

 the water, being evidently afraid to do so, and it 

 is only after this age that it begins by degrees to n. a. Glidden, p. no. 

 become acquainted with the sea. I am of the 



opinion if a pup got into the water that it would be drowned and there- 

 fore would perish if born in the water. For the lirsr six or eight weeks 

 of its life a pup is a land animal and in no way amphibious. 



A new-born pup seal is unable to swim, and is afraid of the water. 

 I have seen a cow seal push her pup from a rock 

 into the water, where it floundered about in a Louis Kimmel, p. 174. 

 helpless manner until the mother would go in, 



