HABITS. 299 



ing through the water with surprising velocity, frequently 

 diving outside the rollers, the next moment emerging from 

 the crest of the foaming breakers, and waddling up the 

 beach with head erect, or, with seeming effort, climbing some 

 kelp-fringed rock, to doze in the scorching sunbeams, while 

 others would lie sleeping or playing among the beds of sea- 

 weed, with their heads and outstretched limbs above the sur- 

 face. But a few days elapsed before a general contention with 

 the adult males began for the mastery of the different rooker- 

 ies, and the victims of the bloody encounter were to be seen on 

 all sides of the island, with torn lips or mutilated limbs and 

 gashed sides, while now and then an unfortunate creature 

 would be met with minus an eye or with the orb forced from its 

 socket, and, together with other wounds, presenting a ghastly 

 appearance. As the time for hauling-up ' drew near, the island 

 became one mass of animation ; every beach, rock, and cliff, 

 where a seal could find foothold, became its resting-place, while 

 a countless herd of old males capped the summit, and the 

 united clamorings of the vast assemblage could he heard, on a 

 calm day, for miles at sea. The south side of the island is high 

 and precipitous, with a projecting ledge hardly perceptible 

 from the beach below, upon which one immense Sea Lion man- 

 aged to climb, and there remained for several weeks until the 

 season was over. How he ascended, or in what manner he re- 

 tired to the water, was a mystery to our numerous ship's crew, 

 as he came and went in the night ; for < Old Gray,' as named 

 by the sailors, was closely watched in his elevated position dur- 

 ing the time the men were engaged at their work on shore. * 



" None but the adult males' were captured, which was usually 

 done by shooting them in the ear or near it; for a ball in any 

 other part of the body had no more effect than it would in a 

 Grizzly Bear. Occasionally, however, they are taken with the 

 club and lance, only shooting a few of the masters of the herd. 



" * Relative to the Sea Lions leaping from giddy heights, an incident oc- 

 curred at Santa Barbara Island, the last of the season of 1852, which we 

 will here mention. A rookery of about . twenty individuals was collected 

 on the brink of a precipitous cliff, at a height at least of sixty feet above 

 the rocks which shelved from the beach below ; and our party were sure 

 in their own minds, that, by surprising the animals, we could drive them 

 over the cliff. This was easily accomplished ; but, to our chagrin, when we 

 arrived at the point below, where we expected to find the huge beasts help- 

 lessly mutilated, or killed outfight, the last animal of the whole rookery 

 was seen plunging into the sea." 



