HABITS. 305 



Mr. Elliott, in referring to the differences between the Cali- 

 fornian and Alaskan Sea Lions, calls attention to the dissimi- 

 larity of their voices. The Northern Sea Lion, he says, "never 

 barks or howls like the animal at the Farallones or Santa 

 Barbara. Young and old, both sexes, from one year and up- 

 ward, have only a deep bass growl, and prolonged, steady roar; 

 while at San Francisco Sea Lions break out incessantly with 

 a i honking ? bark or howl, and never roar."* 



The Californian Sea Lion is now a somewhat well-known 

 animal with the public, various individuals having been at 

 different times on exhibition at the Central Park Menagerie in 

 New York City, and at the Zoological Gardens at Philadel- 

 phia and Cincinnati, as well as Woodward's Gardens in San 

 Francisco. They have also formed part of the exhibition of 

 different travelling shows, especially that of P. T. Barnum. 

 They have also been carried to Europe, where examples have 

 lived for several years at the Zoological Gardens of London, 

 Paris, and elsewhere. Their peculiar "honking" bark, re- 

 ferred to by Mr. Elliott, is hence not unfamiliar to many who 

 have never met with the animal in a state of nature. Their 

 various attitudes and mode of life on the Farallones have also 

 been made familiar to many by the extensive sale of stereo- 

 scopic views of the animals and their surroundings. The Sea 

 Lions that have been exhibited in this country all, or nearly 

 all, belong to the present species, although often wrongly 

 labelled "Eumetopias stelleri.^ The true JE7. stelleri has, how- 

 ever, at least in one instance, been exhibited in Eastern 

 cities. 



The Californian Sea Lion seems generally not to suffer greatly 

 in health by confinement, if properly cared for, although deaths 

 from tuberculosis have repeatedly occurred. They are always 

 objects of great attraction to visitors, and various accounts of 

 their habits in confinement have been published. Mr. Henry 

 Lee, in referring to two that had been for a short time at the 

 Brighton (England) Aquarium, says: "They have grown so 

 much, and are so plump and sleek, that a visitor seeing them now 

 [February, 1876] for the first time since the day of their arrival, 

 would hardly recognize in them the pair of lean, ill-conditioned 

 animals, with ribs as visible as those of an old cab-horse, which 

 waddled out of their travelling crates to follow Lecomte and a 

 herring on the 13th of October last. What their rations had 



* Condition of Affairs in Alaska, p. 158. 

 Misc. Pub. No. 12 20 



