! 602 



Errantry of j&atural $? 



ursinus), so named from the fur and slu,.. 

 of the head, grows to the length of five or 

 six feet, and lias small external ears. The 

 membrane of the hinder feet is prolonged 

 into as many lobes as there are toes, and the 

 fore-feet are placed very far back. The 

 colour of the fur is brown, and when old 

 takes a grayish tint. This species inhabits 

 the coasts of the North Pacific, and is also 

 said to be found in the northern hemi- 

 sphere. 



Sir George Simpson, who has had so many 

 excellent opportunities of studying the man- 

 ners of the North American animals in their 

 native haunts, speaking of the Fur Seals, 

 says "Some twenty or thirty years ago 

 ; there was a most wasteful destruction of the 

 ; Fur Seal, when young and old, male and 

 female, were indiscriminately knocked on 

 the head. This improvidence, as every one 

 might have expected, proved detrimental in 

 two ways. The race was almost extirpated ; 

 and the market was glutted to such a de- 

 gree, at the rate, for some time, of 200,000 

 skins a year, that the prices did not even 

 pay the expenses of carriage. The Rus- 

 : sians, however, have now adopted nearly 

 < the same plan which the Hudson's Bay 

 ': Company pursues in recruiting any of its 

 | exhausted districts, killing only a limited 

 j number of such males as have attained their 

 I full growth a plan peculiarly applicable 

 i to the Fur Seal, inasmuch as its habits render 

 i the system of husbanding the stock as easy 

 1 and certain as that of destroying it. In the 

 month of May, with something of the regu- 

 larity of the almanack, the Fur Seals make 

 their appearance at the island of St. Paul, 

 one of the Aleutian group. Each old male 

 brings a herd of females under its protection, 

 varying in number according to his size and 

 strength ; the weaker brethren are obliged 

 to content themselves with half a dozen 

 wives, while some of the sturdier and fiercer 

 fellows preside over harems that are 200 

 strong. From the date of their arrival in 

 May to that of their departure in October, 

 the whole of them are principally ashore on 

 the beach. The females go down to the 

 sea once or twice a day, while the male, 

 morning, noon, and night, watches his 

 charge with the utmost jealousy, postponing 

 even the pleasures of eating, and drinking^ 

 and sleeping, to the duty of keeping his fa- 

 vourites together. If any young gallant 

 venture by stealth to approach any senior 

 chiefs bevy of beauty, he generally atones 

 for his imprudence with his life, being torn 

 to pieces by the old fellow ; and such of the 

 fair ones as may have given the intruders 

 any encouragement are pretty sure to catch 

 it in the shape of some secondary punish- 

 ment. The ladies are in the straw about a 

 fortnight after they arrive at St. Paul's ; 

 about two or three weeks afterwards, they 

 lay the single foundation, being all that is 

 necessary, of next season's proceedings ; and 

 the remainder of the sojourn they devote 

 exclusively to the rearing of their young. 

 At last the whole band departs, no one 

 knows whither. The mode of capture is 

 this : at the proper time, the whole are 

 driven, like a flock of sheep, to the establish- 



ment, which is about a mile distant from 

 the sea ; and there the males of four years, 

 with the exception of a few that are left to 

 keep up the breed, are separated from the 

 rest and killed. In the days of promiscuous 

 massacre, such of the mothers as have lost 

 their pups would ever and anon return to 

 the establishment, absolutely harrowing up 

 the sympathies of the wives and daughters 

 of the hunters, accustomed as they were to 

 the scene, with their doleful lamentations/* 

 Narrative of a Journey round the World 

 in 1841 and 1842. 



SEBASTES. (Sebastes Forvcgica.') The 

 Northern Sebastes, or Norway Haddock, is 

 an Acanthopterygious fish, of the family 

 Cottidce (genus Scorpcena, Linn.) It in- 

 habits the Icy Sea and Northern Ocean ; is 

 plentiful on the coast of Norway, and is 

 found at Iceland. Greenland, off Newfound- 

 land, &e. It inhabits the deepest bays of 

 South Greenland, and does not approach the 

 shore, except when driven thither by tem- 

 pests. Its colour, when quite fresh, is a 

 bright carmine, which is paler towards the 

 belly, and mixed with brown on the back ; 

 there is likewise a blackish mark on the top 

 of the gill-cover. It resembles the perch in 

 form, its body being somewhat compressed, 

 its profile oblong, and the dorsal and ventral 

 curves being slightly convex : the mouth is 

 oblique, and the lower jaw projects a little, j 

 The whole fish is clothed with small rough 

 scales. Its flesh is dry, but much esteemed 

 by the Greenlanders, who eat its lips raw, ; 

 and were formerly accustomed to use its i 

 spines as sewing needles. There are several 

 other species of Sebastes : one at the Cape ' 

 of Good Hope, which very nearly resembles | 

 the above-described ; and another which j 

 differs from it in a few characters, and is | 

 more like one found in the Mediterranean : 

 there are also two or three in the Indian and i 

 Polynesian seas ; several in the sea of Japan ; I 

 and one in the sea of Kamtschatka (Sebastes 

 variabilis\ which has the head less armed 

 than any other species. 



SECRETARY. [See SERPENT-EATER.] 

 SEDGE- WARBLER, or SEDGE-BIRD ; 

 sometimes called also the WILLOW-LARK. 

 (Sylvia salicaria.) This is a smaller kind 

 of Reed-sparrow ; like the Emberisa schoe- 

 niculus, it frequents reedy and marshy 

 places. It is a bird of a slender, elegant 

 figure : it frequents low, wet grounds ; sit- 

 ting on the top of some spray, with its wings 

 dishevelled; while it utters a loud and 

 somewhat discordant song of only two 

 notes. 



SEMNOPITHECUS. A genus of Mon- 

 keys, bearing many points of resemblance 

 to the Gibbons. They are, however, readily 

 distinguished by their having a very long, 

 slender, and powerfully muscular tail, which 

 is cylindrical for the greatest portion of its 

 length, and terminated by a close tuft of 

 long hairs. The colour of the adult animal 

 is intensely black, except the breast, the 

 abdomen, and the root of the tail, which are 

 gray. On the crown of the head the black 

 hairs are tipped with gray : and as age ad- 



