SEAL 



5282 



SEAL 



ers. Strangely enough, through all of this 

 period of exertion the males fast; they do not 

 taste food from spring until August or there- 

 abouts. 



Soon after the adjustment into households is 

 completed the little seals, or pups, are born. 

 They are sleek, squirmy little animals, weigh- 

 ing about ten pounds each, and from the first 

 are as playful as kittens. Soon after her baby's 

 arrival the mother seal becomes hungry, and 

 swims away in search of food. The little seals 

 axe left in a great group, or pod, hundreds of 

 them together, with absolutely no mark to dis- 

 tinguish one from another, but the mother on 

 her return after a week's absence has no diffi- 

 culty in identifying her offspring; unerringly 

 she picks out her own pup, now clamorously 

 anxious for food. Attempts have been made 

 to show that these mother seals have a real 

 affection for their young, but the tales of their 

 devotion have been much exaggerated. The 

 theory, however, has given rise to at least one 

 charming poem, Kipling's Seal's Lullaby, in 

 which he says: 

 Oh, hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us, 



And black are the waters, that sparkled so 



green, 



The moon, o'er the combers, looks downward to 

 find us 



At rest in the hollows that rustle between. 

 Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy 

 pillow ; 



Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease ! 

 The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark over- 

 take thee, 



Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas. 



A group of young seals learning to swim is, 

 say those who have watched it, a most amus- 

 ing sight. The six-weeks-old babies do not 

 "take to water like a duck," for their heads are 

 very heavy and the rest of their bodies dis- 

 proportionately light, and they find as great 

 difficulty keeping themselves in swimming posi- 

 tion as do young birds in learning to fly. 



Until November or December, according to 

 the weather, the herd remains on its favorite 

 rookery. Discipline is relaxed, and the females 

 and young bulls are no longer dominated and 

 terrorized by the old bulls. There then comes 

 a day when the seal instinct says "Go," and 

 the great herd puts off into the sea until an- 

 other spring shall come round. On several 

 other groups of islands, some belonging to Rus- 



sia and some to Japan, are other herds of fur 

 seals, but none is so large or so important as 

 this Pribilof Island herd. 



Securing Sealskins. The young males are the 

 class killed for fur, for there are as many males 

 born as females, and since every bull has a large 

 harem, many of the males are unnecessary. 

 Since the old bulls will not allow them to set 

 up families until they are seven or eight years 

 old, the young males herd by themselves, and 

 the hunters kill them by clubbing them when 

 they are on land. The skins which must be 

 removed carefully, as a cut skin is rejected 

 are salted and packed in the holds of vessels 

 until the close of the season. A long process is 

 gone through before these rough, hairy pelts 

 become the beautiful skins that are placed on 

 the market. The coarse gray hair is removed, 

 leaving the soft fur exposed, and the skin is 

 carefully dyed, not by dipping, but by repeated 

 treating with a brush. 



Fur-Seal Legislation. The United States, 

 after it came into possession of Alaska, at- 

 tempted to regulate most carefully the killing 

 of seals on the Pribilof Islands. A lease was 

 given to but one company, which was allowed 

 to take only 100,000 skins a year, and those 

 only from male animals; but the demand was 

 far greater than this supply, and seal poaching, 

 or stealing, became most common. The poach- 

 ers did not dare approach the islands and kill 

 the seals on land, but frequented the neighbor- 

 ing waters in the summer time and took the 

 seals from the water. All of these were of 

 necessity females, since the males remain on 

 land all summer, and for every mother that 

 was killed a baby seal on the rocks starved to 

 death. In twenty years, it was estimated, a 

 million females were killed in the sea, and a 

 million pups died in consequence. Stricter and 

 stricter regulations were passed, for it became 

 clear that the seals would sooner or later be 

 exterminated, and in 1910 a law was passed by 

 Congress prohibiting seal killing absolutely for 

 five years. The islands can be patrolled, but 

 to stop poaching in the open sea is far more 

 difficult, as no one nation has jurisdiction over 

 the water more than three miles from shore. 

 To-day not more than 200,000 seals return each 

 year to the Pribilof Islands, in place of the 

 millions that visited the spot thirty years ago. 



Other Seals 



Sea Lion. This is another eared seal, a near 

 relative of the fur seal, from which, however, 



it differs in one important point. It is a hair 

 seal, that is, it has not the soft underfur which 



