386 CALLORHINU8 URSINU8 NORTHERN FUR SEAL. 



young males of four and five years of age perform a most im- 

 portant service. While sufficiently developed to be fully able 

 to serve the females, they lack the physical strength to success- 

 fully contend for a place on the rookery. They haul up with 

 the bachelors at night, but during the day are in the water 

 swimming along the shore of the rookery, always on the alert 

 for the females that seek the water as above stated. On meet- 

 ing them they immediately accompany them to a little distance 

 from the shore and then perform the act of coition. The fe- 

 males, after remaining for a short time in the water, again 

 return to the shore to their former places. The old males find- 

 ing they have been served express their disgust in a most evi- 

 dent manner. The jealous watchfulness of the male over the 

 female ceases with her impregnation, after which she is allowed 

 to go at will about the rookery. From that time she lies either 

 sleeping near her young or spends her time floating or playing 

 in the water near the shore, returning occasionally to suckle her 

 pup. The male, meanwhile, watches over the young, and makes 

 additions to his harem as long as the landing season continues. 

 The females, after giving birth to their young, temporarily re- 

 pair again to the water, and are thus never all on shore at once, 

 so that by the end of the season there will be twice as many 

 young Seals on shore as there are females. As the season ad- 

 vances, or by the 15th of July, the earliest-born young Seals 

 gather in large groups of from three hundred to five hundred 

 in number on the upper edge of the breeding-places, thus sep- 

 arating themselves in a measure from the beachmasters. They 

 spend their time in play until tired, when they fall asleep, often 

 sleeping so soundly that one can almost lift them from the 

 ground by the flipper without awaking them. 



"By the 25th of July the females have all arrived and given 

 birth to their young. At this time the beachmasters, after hav- 

 ing been confined to the same rock for an average period of 

 ninety days, without eating or drinking, fighting and struggling 

 with each other for their places, have become so lean and ex- 

 hausted as to present a remarkable contrast to the fat and sleek 

 condition in which they arrived at the island. They are now mere 

 skeletons, almost too weak to drag themselves into the water ; 

 they now crawl away, and are seen only in small numbers hanging 

 about the shores away from the breeding-places. As these leave, 

 the reserves and younger Seals come in to take their places, 

 covering any straggling female that may have arrived late or 



