FUR-SEAL OF COMMERCE. 275 



Feet. 



Length from the snout to tip of the tail 3 



of the tail, 



ear, : 



from snout to ant* edge of bae of paw 1 $ 



posterior edge of paw to root of tail,...l i 



of fore- paw from base to tip, 11 



its membranous portion, 4 



posterior extremity from base to tip,... 7 

 . its membranous portion, 



Greatest breadth of fore-paw at base, 4 4 



- its point, li 



Breadth across the back from one pa w to another, 1 



Distance from tip of snout to the ear, 5 



The angle of the mouth in the perpendicular of the eye. 



To this description we shall now add that account 

 of its habits, &c. which has been supplied, with his 

 usual point and ability, by Captain Weddell. " No- 

 thing," he remarks, " regarding the Fur-Seal is more 

 astonishing than the disproportion in the size of the 

 male and female. A large grown male, from the 

 tip of the nose to the extremity of the tail, is six 

 feet nine inches, while the female is not more than 

 three and a half feet. This class of the males, how- 

 ever, is not the most numerous, but, being physically 

 the most powerful, they keep in their possession 

 all the females, to the exclusion of the younger 

 branches ; hence, at the time of parturition, the males 

 attending the females may be computed as one to 

 twenty, which shows this to be, perhaps, the most 

 polygamous of large animals. 



" They are in their nature completely gregarious ; 

 but they flock together, and assemble on the coast at 

 different periods, and in distinct classes. The males 

 of the largest size go on shore about the middle 



