184 Sport and Life. 



smooth sandy beaches being avoided except by the young seals as 

 play ground. Here, during the breeding time, which lasts from 

 May to September, several million fur seals are found congregated 

 in densely packed, ceaselessly moving masses. 



The first to arrive at the rookeries are the bulls, or full grown 

 males over five years of age, for, unlike the females or, cows, who 

 begin to propagate when they are two years old, the males, until 

 the sixth year, are not allowed by their elders to start harems of 

 their own. The bulls begin to arrive in May, and from the moment 

 they haul up the fierce battles for which they are famous commence. 

 The object for which they strive is to secure front positions, as near 

 as possible to the water's edge, where, as the cows gradually 

 commence to land, which they do a fortnight or three weeks later, 

 the bulls who have secured " front stalls " can pounce upon and 

 secure for themselves the greatest number of wives, the weaker 

 bulls being driven further and further back as stronger rivals renew 

 hostilities, till the shelving beach is occupied by tier upon tier of 

 fighting males to a depth back from the water of i5oft. The old 

 warriors, who have been able to make good their claim to the front 

 row by dint of a fortnight's almost incessant fighting, present often 

 shocking sights, their blubber-coated bodies being gashed and torn, 

 and their bleeding heads minus an eye. They grow to a formidable 

 size, the grotesquely overweighted upper part of the body being a 

 mass of blubber, upon which, during the long fast and constant 

 drain upon their virile forces, they subsist by absorption, for, from 

 the moment they land in May to the end of the rutting season about 

 the first week of August, they never leave their posts night or day, 

 thus entirely abstaining from food and water for a period of eleven 

 or twelve weeks. Their weight, when they first land in the full 

 prime of strength as well as beauty of fur, often exceeds 55olb., 

 and even 6oolb., the average being about 4oolb. Very different 

 looking objects are they when, worn to shadows, their fur and long 

 over hair on the point of being shed, they drag themselves back to 

 the element which remains their home for the next eight months, 

 and where their voracious appetite and a plenteous supply of fish 



