194 SKKTCH OF THE HISFORY OF MAMMALIA. 



its i'ur is brown, washed with gray : it is long and erect, 

 especially round the neck in old males, where the hair 

 is two inches in length and stiff; there is beneath the 

 hair a soft brownish-red wool close to the skin, (Fig. 

 133.) This species inhabits the islands on the north- 

 west of America, Kamtchatka, the Kurile Islands, &c., 

 and is migratory in its habits. When these seals appear 

 off Kamtchatka and the Kuriles early in the spring, they 

 are in high condition, and the females are pregnant. 

 They remain on or about the shore for two months, 

 during which the females bring forth. They are poly- 



132.— Skull of Ursine Seal. 



gamous, and live in families, every male being surrounded 

 by a crowd of females (from fifty to eighty), whom he 

 guards with the greatest jealousy. These families, each, 

 including the young, amounting to 100 or 120, live sepa- 

 rate, though they crowd the shore, and that to such an 

 extent on the islands off the north-west point of America, 

 that it is said they oblige the traveller to quit it and scale 

 the neighbouring rocks. Both male and female are very 

 affectionate to their young, and fierce in their defence ; 

 but the males are often tyrannically cruel to the females, 

 which are very submissive. If one family encroaches 

 on the station of another, a general fight is the conse- 

 quence. They will not, in fact they dare not, leave 

 their stations, for if they did they must encroach on that 

 of some other family. Steller relates that he had been 

 beset by these seals for six hours together, and was at 

 last obliged to climb a precipice to get rid of the infu- 



