94 Seals 



all the fish in the neighbourhood take the hint and go 

 away. But at last there comes a time when a general 

 move is made seaward, and soon that densely thronged 

 patch of land, where the noise had been so deafening 

 that one can only liken it to the noise of two express 

 trains passing one another in the tunnel, is wrapt in 

 primeval silence, only the occasional sullen boom of a 

 breaker, or the scream of a lonely sea-bird, punctuating 

 the stillness. 



Now begins the truly happy time of the Seal's life. 

 That stormy four months ashore for the parents, and 

 incidentally for the young ones also, has passed like a 

 hideous nightmare, and the beautiful free life of a deep- 

 sea denizen is before them. They roam singly whither- 

 soever they will all over the free ocean, feeding, ever 

 feeding from the bounteous store provided for them. 

 When weary they sleep upon the surface, and I have 

 often in the North Pacific passed them so sleeping, 

 rocked in the embrace of the curling waves, hundreds 

 of miles from land. No one really knows how far they 

 go, how wide their range is during the eight months 

 they are away from their birthplace. But it seems 

 difficult to believe that they ever pass through the 

 tropics, having such a rooted objection to warmth. 

 Of course, there are several kinds of Seals who frequent 

 the temperate zones, notably the protected rookery 

 on the Farallone Islands, so near the city of San 

 Francisco that one of the attractions offered to visitors 

 at the Ocean House is that they may sit on the verandah 

 and watch the free gambols of the Seals, 



Of course the Seal has enemies, stealthy and 

 voracious. The killer whale, for instance, has an 

 uncanny habit of slipping up upon a sleeping Seal and 

 swallowing him at a gulp. One grampus, indeed, 

 stranded upon the Calif ornian coast, and cut up by a 



