REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 93 



of a sheep calling to her lamb. As she approaches the mass (of young) 

 several of the young ones answer and start to meet her, responding to 

 her call as a young lamb answers its parent. As she meets them she 

 looks at them and passes hurriedly on till she meets her own, which she 

 at once recognizes."* 



320. Elliott has adopted this theory, and amplifies it, writing: — "The 

 mother, without first entering into the crowd of thousands, recognizes 

 the voice of her offspring, and then advances, striking out right and 

 left, toward the position from which it replies." Elsewhere in this con- 

 nection he speaks of the mother crying out for its young and recognizing 

 the individual reply, "though ten thousand around, all together, should 

 blaat [sic] at once." On a later page, he again says : " I have witnessed 

 so many examples of the females turning pups away to suckle only 

 some particular other one, that I feel sure I am entirely right in saying 

 that the seal-mothers know their own young, and that they will not 

 permit any others to nurse save their own. I believe that this recog- 

 nition of them is due chiefly to the mother's scent and hearing." t 



321. It is not intended to criticize these statements, which, in so far 

 as they relate to observed facts, can be certified to; but it is necessary 

 to point out that they constitute the entire body of proof in the matter 

 in question, and that the infiuence drawn from them must be charac- 

 terized as "not proven." The young themselves certainly do not know 

 their own mothers, and the statement that the mother knows her indi- 

 vidual young seems to be placed in doubt, and is certainly not to be 

 assumed merely from analogy with other animals which show a degree 

 of affection for their young, because of the observation which may be 

 made any day on the rookeries, that the female fur-seal is entirely care- 

 less respecting her offspring. 



58 322. As Mr. Elliott is chiefly responsible for the theory here 



specially referred to, it is only fair, however, that he should be 

 heard also on the last-mentioned point. On this he says: " The apathy 

 with which the young are treated by the old upon the breeding grounds, 

 especially by the mothers, was very strange to me, and I was con- 

 stantly surprised at it. I have never seen a seal-mother caress or fondle 

 her offspring; and should it stray to a short distance from the harem I 

 could step to and pick it up, and even kill it before the mother's eye, 

 without causing her the slightest concern, so far as all outward signs 

 and manifestations would indicate."! 



323. The whole theory in fact, when examined, rests on the circum- 

 stance that when a female seal is seen to come ashore, she will not take 

 the first young one she meets, but perhaps by sound, perhaps by scent, 

 selects one which she allows to feed. It appears, therefore, to be at 

 least quite possible, that in thus making her selection she may merely 

 seek a young one which does not carry the smell of fresh milk about 

 it. The gregarious habits of the fur-seal, with the difficulties inherent 

 in the matter of the reunion of mother and young under the peculiar 

 circumstances obtaining on the rookeries, appear to show that it would 

 be advantageous to seal life as a whole if any mother would suckle any 

 hungry pup. 



324. It may be added, that in a report received from Mr. C. H. Jack- 

 son, Government Agent in charge of the Seal and Guano Islands of 

 Cape Colony, he states, respecting the fur-seals inhabiting these islands 

 (after speaking of the killing of females), that "but for a happy pro. 



*A8 quoted by Allen, "Monograph of North American Pinnipeds," p. 387. 

 t United States Census Report, pp. 39 and 162. 

 t United States Census Report, p. 38. 



