592 PHOCA VITULINA HARBOR SEAL. 



'Kassigiak') as having an almost worthless skin, and seldom 

 use it except for their*skin tents. The skins of the young, on 

 the contrary, are a great acquisition ". He further states that 

 they do not make an excavation beneath the snow for the recep- 

 tion of the young, like Phoca fcetida, "but bring forth later in 

 the season on the bare ice, fully exposed". 



Under the name " Leopard Seal," Captain Scammon has given 

 a very good account of the habits of this species as' observed 

 by him on the Pacific coast of J^orth America. He speaks of 

 it as displaying no little sagacity, and considerable boldness, 

 although exceedingly wary. He says it is "found about out- 

 lying rocks, islands, and points, on sand-reefs made bare at low 

 tide, and is frequently met with in harbors among shipping, 

 and up rivers more than a hundred miles from the sea. We 

 have often observed them," he continues, "close to the vessel 

 when under way, and likewise when at anchor, appearing to- 

 emerge deliberately from the depths below, sometimes only 

 showing their heads, at other times exposing half of their bodies, 

 but the instant any move was made on board, they would van- 

 ish like an apparition under water, and frequently that would be 

 the last seen of them, or, if seen again, they would be far out 

 of gun-shot." They come ashore, he observes, "more during 

 windy weather than in calm, and in the night more than in the 

 day; and they have been observed to collect in the largest 

 herds upon the beaches and rocks, near the full and change of 

 the moon. They delight in basking in the warm sunlight, and 

 when no isolated rock or shore is at hand, they will crawl upon 

 any fragment of drift-wood that will float them. Although 

 gregarious, they do not herd in such large numbers as do nearly 

 all others of the seal tribe ; furthermore, they may be regarded 

 almost as mutes, in comparison with the noisy Sea Lions. It is 

 very rarely, however, any sound is uttered by them, but occa- 



r sionally a quick bark or guttural whining, and sometimes a 

 peculiar bleating is heard when they are assembled together 

 about the period of bringing forth their young. At times, when 

 a number meet in the neighborhood of rocks or reefs distant 



from the main-land, they become quite playful, and exhibit much 

 life in their gambols, leaping out of the water or circling around 

 upon the surface. ... Its rapacity in pursuing and devour- 

 ing the smaller members of the piscatory tribes is quite equal, 

 in proportion to its size, to that of the Orca. When grappling 

 with a fish too large to be swallowed whole, it will hold and 



