18973 Fur Seal Psychology 



was to imprison tiie young males in the "Salt 

 Lagoon" (a bottle-shaped indentation on St. Paul) 

 during the period of pelagic sealing, and thus pre- 

 vent their destruction at sea. Accordingly we Fencing a 

 drove a few thousand into the little bay, previously ■^''''"''^ 

 enclosed by a wire fence some eight feet high. After 

 a time, however, they became uneasy and in the 

 course of a week began to climb over — a feat which 

 had seemed impossible with beasts so lacking in 

 power of adaptation and so thoroughly under the 

 control of innate tendencies, for while possessing 

 the most highly specialized instincts they are the 

 most unteachable of creatures. Their general in- The Fur 

 telligence — that is, their power to choose among ^^'^^'f . 

 reactions to external stimulus — had been pre- ^^"^^ '^^ 

 viously tested by us In an experiment devised to 

 separate the killables from the rest of the holostiaki. 

 For this operation we provided three runways 

 joined in the form of the letter Y, having an en- 

 trance chute only just wide enough to admit one 

 individual at a time, and with a gate across the base 

 of each arm. It was perfectly easy to drive the 

 animals up to and along the lane, but, arrived at 

 the barriers, each insisted on blindly following the 

 one before. Nothing, in fact, would induce him to 

 pass through an open gate if his predecessor had 

 gone by way of a closed one, and he would stubbornly 

 push against the latter until it was opened. 



The stupidity of the Fur Seal under these new His 

 conditions thus contrasted stronglv with its in- ^'''^'^^^^'■' 

 fallible geographic instinct, and also with the adapt- 

 able cleverness under domestication of its nearest 

 cousin, the Brown Sea Lion of California — Zalo- 

 pbus — which is almost as teachable as a dog. 



C 587 3 



cousin 



