REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 71 



hours from the time jit whicli they hiul had any possible connection witli 

 their mothers. Others, again, liad not been killed till the following- 

 morning, enlarging the necessary time of abstinence from suckling to 

 twenty-four hours from the time of last suckling'. These observations 

 appear to show that the young seals are capable of laying in a very con- 

 siderable reserve in the way of mother's milk, and have important bear- 

 ings on the general question of the time'during which the mothers may 

 absent themselves from the breeding rookeries at earlier dates in the 

 history of the young. 



242. Perhaps the most notable feature in regard to this food question, 

 and one directly consequent on the prolonged abstinence of the seals 

 from food while on and about the islands, is the entire absence of all 

 excrement on the rookeries and hauling grounds. Captain Bryant 

 appears, however, to be the only author who has specially mentioned 

 this particular and striking fact. He writes: 



The fact of their remainiug without food seems so contrary to nature, that it seems 

 to me proper to state some of the evidences of it. Having been assured by the natives 

 that such was the fact, I deemed it of sufficient importance to test it by all the means 

 available. Accordingly, I took special pains to examine daily a large extent of the 

 rookery, and note carefully the results of my observations. The rocks on the rook- 

 ery are worn smooth and washed clean by the spring-tides, and any discharge of 

 excrement could not fail to be detected. I found, in a few instances where newly- 

 arrived seals had made a single discharge of red-coloured excrement, but nothing was 

 seen afterwards to show that such discharges were continued, or any evidence that 

 the animals had partaken of food. They never left the rocks except when compelled 

 by the heat of the sun to seek the water to cool themselves. They are then absent 

 from the land for but a short time. I also examined the stomachs of several hundred 

 young ones, killed by the natives for eating, and always witlio)it finding any trace of 

 Ibod in them. The same was true of the few nursing females killed for dissection. 

 On their arrival in the spring they are very fat and unwieldy, but when they leave, 

 after their four mouths' fast, they are very thin, being reduced to one-half their 

 former weight. 



42 In a note appended to the above by Professor Allen, that gen- 



tleman writes : " Steller states that in the numerous specimens 

 he dissected he always found the stomachs empty, and remarks that 

 they take no food during the several weeks they remain on land; Mr. 

 Dall conhrms the same statement in respect to the present species, and 

 Captains Cook, VVeddel, and others, who have had opportunities of 

 observing the different southern species, atfirm the same fact in respect 

 to the latter. Lord Shuldham long since stated that the walrus had 

 the same habit, though its actual fast seems somewhat shorter than 

 those of the eared seals, . . . This singular phenomenon of a pro 

 tracted annual fast during the j)eriod of parturition and the nursing of 

 the young — the season when most mammals require the most anq)le 

 sustenance — seems not wholly confined to the walruses and eared seals. 

 So far as known, however, it is limited to the pinnij)edes; and, except- 

 ing in the case of a single member, the sea elephant, to the two above- 

 named families. By some of the old writers the sea-elephant was said 

 to feed sx>aringly, at this time, on the grasses and sea- weeds that grew 

 in the vicinity of its breeding places, but the weight of the evidence in 

 respect to this point seems to indicate that this species fasts similarly 

 to the eared seals and walruses during the period it resorts to the land 

 to bring forth its young."* 



243. The fur-seals on Juan Fernandez are likewise reported, and 

 without qualification as to sex, to abstain from nourishment during the 

 breeding season: "Toward the end of the month of June these animals 



* On the Eared Seals. " Rull. Mus. Conip. ZooL," vol. ii. No. 1, pp. 101, 102. See 

 also Senate, Ex. Doc. No. 32, 4l8t Congress, 2nd Session, p. 5. 



