THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 85 



tore them out. leaving an ugly, gaping wound — for the sharp eye-teeth cut a deeper gutter in the skin and flesh 

 than would have held my hand; hied into almost supernatural rage, the injured lion retaliated, quick as a Hash, in 

 kind; the hair flew from both of them into the air, the blood streamed down in frothy torrents, while high above 

 the boom of the breaking waves and shrill deafening screams of water-fowl over head, rose the ferocious, hoarse, 

 and desperate roar of the combatants. 



Land travel or the sea-lion. — Though provided with flippers, to all external view, as the fur-seal is, the 

 sea lion cannot, however, make use of them at all in the same free manner. The fur-seal may be driven five or six 

 miles in twenty four hours, under the most favorable conditions of cool, moist weather; the "seevitchie", however, 

 can only go two miles, the conditions of weather and roadway being the same. The sea-lion balances and swings 

 its long and heavy neck, as a lever, to and fro, with every hitching up behind of its posterior limbs, which it seldom 

 raises from the ground, drawing them up after the fore-feet with a slide over the .mass or sand, and rocks, as tin' 

 case may be ; ever and anon pausing to take a sullen and savage survey of the field and the natives, who are driving 

 them. 



The sea-lion is polygamous, but it does not maintain any regular system and method in preparing for and 

 attending to its harem, like that so fiuely illustrated on the breeding-grouuds of the fur-seal; audit is mil so 

 numerous, comparatively speaking. There are not, according to my best judgment, over ten or twelve thousand 

 of these animals altogether on the breeding-grounds of the Pribylov islands; it does not haul more than a few rods 

 anywhere, or under any circumstances, back from the sea. It cannot be visited and inspected by men as the fur- 

 seals are, for it is so shy and suspicious that, on the slightest warning of an approach, a stampede into the water is 

 a certain result.* 



Peculiar cowardice of the sea-lion. — That noteworthy, intelligent courage of the fur-seal, though it docs 

 not possess half the size nor one-quarter of the muscular strength of the sea-lion, is entirely wanting in the huge 

 bulk and brain of the Eumetopias. A boy, with a rattle or a pop-gun, could stampede ten thousand sea-lion bulls, 

 in the height of the breeding-season, to the water; and keep them there for the rest of the season. t 



First arrivals. — The males come out and locate over the narrow belts of the rookery-grounds (sometimes as 

 at St. Paul on the immediate sea-margin of the fur-seal breeding places), two or three weeks in advance of the 

 females, which arrive later, i. c. between the 1st to the Gth of June; and these females are never subjected to 

 that intense, jealous supervision so characteristic of the fur-seal harem. The sea-lion bulls, however, fight savagely 

 among themselves, and turn off from the breeding-ground all the younger and weaker males. 



The female sea-lion. — The cow sea-lion is not quite half the size of the adult male; she will measure from 

 eight to nine feet in length osteologically, with a weight of four or rive hundred pounds ; she has the same general 

 cast of countenance and build of the bull; but, as she does not sustain any fasting period of over a week or ten 

 days consecutively, she never comes out so grossly fat as the male. With reference to the weight of the latter. 1 

 was particularly unfortunate in not being able to get one of those big bulls to the scales before it had been bled; 

 and in bleeding I know that a flood of blood poured out which should have been recorded in the weight. There- 

 fore. I can only estimate this aggregate avoirdupois of one of the finest-conditioned adult male sea.-lions at 1,400 

 to 1,500 pounds; an average weight, however, might safely be recorded as touching 1,200 pounds. t 



'That the sea-lion 1 mil should be so cowardly in the presence of man, yet so ferocious and brave toward one another and other 

 amphibious animals, struck me as a line of singular contrast with the undaunted bearing of the fur seal " seacatch ", which, though being 

 not half the size, or possessing muscular power to anything like its development in the "seevitchie", nevertheless, will unflinchingly fare, 

 on its station at the rookery, any man. to the death. The sea-lion bulls, certainly, fight as savagely anil as desperately, one with another, 

 as the fur seal males do. There is no question about that : and their superior strength and size only makes the result more effective in 

 the exhibition of gaping wounds ami attendant bloodshed. I have repeatedly seen examples of these old warriors of the sea which were 

 literally scarred, from their muzzles to their posteriors, so badly and so uniformly as to have fairly lost all the color, or general appearance 

 even, of hair anywhere on their bodies. 



I recall, in this connection, the sight of an aged male sea-lion, which had evidently been defeated by a younger and more lusty rival, 

 perhaps ; it was hauled upon a lava shelf at Southwest point, solitary and alone : the rock around it being literally covered with pools 

 ot pus, which was oozing out and trickling down from a score of festering wounds : the victim stood planted squarely mi its torn fore- 

 flippers, with head erect and thrown bark upon its shoulders : its eyes were closed, and it gently swayed its -ore neck and shoulders in a 

 sort of troubled, painful day-dreaming or dozing. Like the fur-sea!, the sea-lion never notices its wounds to nurse and lick them, as dogs 

 do, or other carnivora ; it never pays tin slightest attention to theia, no matter how grievously it may be injured. 



t This marked cowardice of the sea-lion was well noted by Steller, who speaks of it thus : " Though tin- males have a terrible aspect, 

 yet they take flight mi tie- first appearance of man ; and if surprised in their sleep, they are panic struck, sighing deeply, and in their 

 attempt to escape get quite confused, tumble down, and tremble so much that tiny are scarcely able to move their limbs. If. however, 

 reduced to extremity, they grow desperate, turn on their enemy with great fury and noise, and put even the most valiant to flight." — 

 JVor. Com. Acad. Sci, Petropol., tome ii, 1749. 



{Often, when the fur-seal and sea-lion bulls haul up in the beginning of the season, examples among them which are inordinately 

 fat u ill be seen; their extra avoirdupois renders them very conspicuous, even among large gatherings of their kind J they seem to exhibit 

 a sense of self-oppression then, quite as marked as is that subsequent air of depression worn when, later, they have starved out this load 

 of surplus blubber, and are shambling back to the sea. for recuperation and rest. 



I thought over and devised many plans to kill and weigh entile 01 1' these unusually heavy bulls; but, they all failed, because 1 did 



not have the time to span from so many other observations pressing and necessary to be made at that season, if made at all during the year. 

 The united effort of live or six men, aided by the mule and cart at St. Paul, would solve the problem, doubt less, almost any daj thej set about 



