THE SEA LION. 135 
taceans, and sea -fowls; always with the addition of a few pebbles or smooth stones, 
some of which are a pound in weight.* Their principal feathery food, however, is 
the penguin, in the southern hemisphere, and the gulls in the northern ; while the 
manner in which they decoy and catch the gaviota of the Mexican and Californian 
coasts, displays no little degree of cunning. When in pursuit, the animal dives 
deeply under water and swims some distance from where it disappeared ; then, rising 
cautiously, it exposes the tip of its nose above the surface, at the same time giving 
it a rotary motion, like that of a water -bug at play. The unwary bird on the 
wing, seeing the object near by, alights to catch it, while the Sea Lion, at the 
same moment, settles beneath the waves, and at one bound, with extended jaws, 
seizes its screaming prey, and instantly devours it. 
A few years ago great numbers of Sea Lions were taken along the coast of 
Upper and Lower California, and thousands of barrels of oil obtained. The num- 
ber of seals slain exclusively for their oil would appear fabulous, when we realize 
the fact that it requires on an average, throughout the season, the blubber of three 
or four Sea Lions to produce a barrel of oil. Their thick, coarse-grained skins 
were not considered worth preparing for market, in a country where manual labor 
was so highly valued. At the present time, however, they are valuable for glue- 
stock, and the seal -hunter now realizes more comparative profit from the hides than 
from the oil. But while the civilized sealers, plying their vocation along the sea- 
board of California and Mexico, destroy the Leon marino, for the product of its oil, 
skin, testes, and whiskers, the simple Aleutians of the Alaska region derive from 
these animals many of their indispensable articles of domestic use. It appears an 
* The enormous quantity of food which would piece of sturgeon, upon which fish the animals 
be required to maintain the herd of many thou- are chiefly fed, would be thrown in the water 
sands, which, in former years, annually assem- near by; and, although it would sink out of 
bled at the small island of Santa Barbara, would sight from the surface, the huge beast would 
seem incredible, if they daily obtained the al- make a bound from the rocks, and diving, would 
lowance given to a male and female Sea Lion, instantly recover it and again return to his ele- 
on exhibition at Woodward's Gardens, San Fran- vated position ; or when a morsel lodged upon 
cisco, California, where the keeper informed me the rocks, he would seize and devour it in a 
that he fed them regularly, every day, forty moment, and in the same manner as the ani- 
pounds of fresh fish. Since these animals have mal picks up a crab, with his mouth, from the 
taken up their abode in the ponds of the gar- slimy rocks of the ocean, and instantly bolts it. 
dens, the male has become quite expert in The female was fed in the water ; and as the 
catching food within his jaws, as it is thrown food was thrown from side to side in the aqua- 
to him or near him, while lying upon a pile of rium, the animal would dart through the ele- 
rocks in the centre of the pond. Sometimes a ment with surprising velocity to receive it. 
