64 EDWARD A. WILSON. 



thus employed, they stand erect, supporting themselves on their fore limbs, quite close 

 to one another, with wide, gaping mouths making from time to time most vicious 

 snatches each at the other's neck (see Figs. 33, 34, p. 64). The largest males were 

 the most phlegmatic, until roused by the approach of another of their own sex, when 

 they would at once show signs of disapproval, and if this was not sufficient, would 

 make for the intruder and drive him off. 



They took very little notice of us, but the females would leave their masters' 

 company, and follow us in small crowds, galloping with quick bounds, their long 

 necks outstretched and mouths agape, emitting all the while a kind of bark or 

 hoarse cough. When they came too close, shooting out and withdrawing their long 

 necks in the most rapid manner imaginable, and coming a little closer at every snap, 

 we had to drive them off with sticks and seaweed foots. They were easily frightened, 

 though they soon regained confidence, and it was far from pleasant to walk along the 

 beach with half-a-dozen snapping sea-lions at one's heels, each one encouraging its 

 neighbours to press the attack a little closer. Occasionally one of the females would 

 put all timidity on one side, and rush straight up with long hops from a distance of 

 twenty yards, with the obvious intention of doing mischief. The slightest knock on 

 the nose would, however, make her turn and retire as rapidly as she had come. 



The females were always far smaller than the males, and were either bluish-grey 

 or buff or cream-coloured, with very sleek coats. Some had a beautiful steel-blue gloss 

 all over, while others were cream-coloured except for the heads and shoulders, which 

 might be a steel-blue grey. 



The males were uniformly dark and blackish-brown, head, neck, mane, and body ; 

 very ugly, with large, dark, lustreless, weeping eyes, and a high ridged head which 

 suggested that of the bloodhound when looked full in the face. Moving about in 

 a stately manner on all fours, they looked like large brown bears with their feet cut off, 

 as though they were walking about on the stumps. The larger males were at least 

 three times as bulky as the largest females, and each one guarded five or six of the 

 latter which lay in a circle round about him. The females, unlike the males, were 

 active in all their movements, galloping about freely and attacking one another within 

 the sphere of their masters' protection. 



There were only two small pups, and only one of these in the red chestnut coat 

 of its birth. The other was the size of a large terrier, and exceedingly active, 

 reminding one much in its movements of a dog running here and there about its 

 mother, which lay with a group of females. 



We were on Enderby Island in the third week of March, and we believed that the 

 two young ones that we saw were exceptionally late arrivals, and that the majority of 

 the young around us were hardly to be distinguished from the females.* In the Trans. 

 N.Z. Inst, 1892, however, there is a note by Sir James Hector concerning this 

 Sea-lion, in which he says : " The males take up their stations on the coast in 



* See Hutton & Drummond, Op. cit., p. 36. 



