352 CALLORHINUS URSINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. 



u The sound arising from these great breeding-grounds of the 

 fur-seal, where thousands upon thousands of angry, vigilant 

 bulls are roaring, chuckling, piping, and multitudes of seal- 

 mothers are calling in hollow, bla-ating tones to their young, 

 which in turn respond incessantly, is simply indescribable. It 

 is, at a slight distance, softened into a deep booming, as of a 

 cataract, and can be heard a long distance off at sea, under 

 favorable circumstances as far as five or six miles, and fre- 

 quently warns vessels that may be approaching the islands in 

 thick, foggy weather, of the positive, though unseen, proximity 

 of land. Mght and day, throughout the season, the din of the 

 rookeries is steady and constant. 



" The seals seem to suffer great inconvenience from a com- 

 paratively low degree of heat ; for, with a temperature of 46 

 and 48 on land, during the summer, they show signs of dis- 

 tress from heat whenever they make any exertion, pant, raise 

 their hind flippers, and use them incessantly as fans. With the 

 thermometer at 55-60, they seem to suffer even when at rest, 

 and at such times the eye is struck by the kaleidoscopic appear- 

 ance of a rookery, on which a million seals are spread out in 

 every imaginable position their bodies can assume, all indus- 

 triously fanning themselves, using sometimes the fore flippers, 

 as ventilators, as it were, by holding them aloft motionless, at 

 the same moment fanning briskly with the hind flipper, or flip- 

 pers, according as they sit or lie. This wavy motion of flapping 

 and fanning gives a peculiar shade of hazy indistinctness to 

 the whole scene, which is difficult to express in language ; but 

 one of the most prominent characteristics of the fur-seal is this 

 fanning manner in which they use their flippers, when seen on 

 the breeding-grounds in season. They also, when idling, as it 

 were, off shore at sea, lie on their sides, with only a partial ex- 

 posure of the body, the head submerged, and hoist up a fore or 

 hind flipper clear of the water, while scratching themsejves or 

 enjoying a nap ; but in this position there is no fanning. I say 

 L scratching,' because the seal, in common with all animals, is 

 preyed upon by vermin, a species of louse and a tick, peculiar 

 to itself. 



"All the bulls, from the very first, that have been able to 

 hold their positions, have not left them for an instant, night or 

 day, nor do they do so until the end of the rutting-season, which 

 subsides entirely between the 1st and 10th of August, begin- 

 ning shortly after the coming of the cows in June. Of necessity, 



