228 FAMILY OTARIIDJE. 



PRODUCTS. 



The products of the Eared Seals vary in importance with the 

 species, the Hair Seals yielding only oil, their skins being 

 almost valueless except to the natives of the countries these 

 animals frequent. The products of the Eared Hair Seals are, 

 consequently, not different from those of the common Earless 

 Seals, and at present are of far less commercial importance, in 

 consequence of the more limited source oS supply. The Fur 

 Seals, on the other hand, are hunted almost exclusively for 

 their fur, which forms the well-known and highly- valued "Seal 

 fur " of furriers. The fur differs in quality with season and 

 the sex and age of the animals, the most valuable being^ 

 obtained from the females and rather young males. In the 

 young of the second year taken "in season, "the skin "un- 

 plucked" forms a rich and soft fur, the very thick, silky red- 

 dish-brown underfur being slightly overtopped by short, very 

 soft, fine, gray overhair. Later in the season, and especially 

 in the old animals, the overhair is coarser and longer, and even 

 somewhat harsh, beneath which, however, is still the heavy 

 soft underfur. Dealers sort the skins into grades, in accord- 

 ance with the size of the skins and the quality of the fur, these 

 features depending upon the age and sex of the animal, rather 

 than upon the species. Dr. Gray refers to what he calls Arcto- 

 cephalus falMandicus as being "easily known from all other 

 Fur Seals in the British Museum by the evenness, shortness, 

 closeness, and elasticity of the fur, and the length of the under- 

 fur. The fur is soft enough to wear as a rich fur, without the 

 removal of the longer hairs, which are always removed in other 

 Fur Seals."* This, however, is not a peculiarity of the Falk- 

 land Island Fur Seal, the overhair in prime young skins of the 

 Alaskan Fur Seal being equally rich and soft. They are also 

 often made up and worn " without the removal of the longer 

 hairs," and are by some preferred to the prepared or "dressed" 

 furs of the furrier. The Australian Fur Seal appears to differ 

 little in the quality or color of its pelage from the Alaskan and 

 Falkland Island species. The Fur Seal of the Cape of Good 

 Hope, although one of the Fur Seals of commerce, appears to 

 have, according to Gray's account of the few examples he has 

 examined, a shorter coat of underfur. I have, however, met 

 with no statement respecting the Cape Fur Seal peltries that 

 indicates that they are inferior in quality to those of other local- 



* Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 4th ser., i, 1868, p. 103. 



