234 EUMETOPiAS stellp:ri steller's sea lion. 



is said to range from four linudred to five liundred pounds, "with 

 a length of eight to nine feet. The color varies with age and 

 season. The young are "of a rich dark chestnut-brown.'" 

 The adults, on their first arrival at their breeding-grounds in 

 spring, present no sexual dissimilarity of color, which is then 

 light brownish-rufous, darker behind the fore limbs and on the 

 abdomen. Later the color changes to "bright golden-rufous 

 or ocher." The pelage is moulted in August, and the new coat^ 

 when fully grown in November, is "light sepia or vandyke- 

 brown, with deeper shades, almost dark upon the belly." At 

 this season the females are somewhat lighter-colored than the 

 males, and occasionally specimens of both sexes are seen with 

 patches of dark brown on a yellowish-rufous ground {Elliott).. 

 In two adult males in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 

 and another adult male in the National Museum, the general 

 color of the upper side of the body varies from pale yellowish- 

 brown to reddish- brown, becoming much darker toward the 

 tail. The sides below the median line are reddish, shading 

 above into the lighter color of the back, and below passing into 

 the dusky reddish-brown of the lower surface, which latter be- 

 comes darker posteriorly. The limbs are dark reddish-brown,, 

 approaching black, especially externally. The hairs are indi- 

 vidually variable in color, some being entirely pale yellowish, 

 others yellowish only at the tips and dark below, while others 

 are wholly dark reddish-brown or nearly black throughout. 

 The relative proportion of the light and dark hairs determines 

 the general color of the body. The lielage consists of two kinds 

 of hair, the one abundant, straight, stiff, coarse and flattened, 

 and constituting the outer coat ; the other very short, exceed- 

 ingly sparse and finer, and in such small quantity as to be 

 detected only on close inspection. The hair is longest on the 

 anterior upper i)ortion of the body, where on the neck and 

 shoulders it attains a length of 40 mm.; it decreases in length j)os- 

 teriorly, and toward the tail has a length of only 15 mm. It is 

 still shorter on the abdomen, becomes still more reduced on the 

 limbs, and disappears entirely toward the ends of the digits. 

 The end of the nose, the soles and palms, the anal region, and 

 the extra-digital cartilaginous flaps are naked and black (in 



around tlie cliest, and that the average weight is over one thousand pounds. 

 He gives the lengtli of the full-grown female as &J to 9 feet, and the circum- 

 ference at the shoulders as 4, the females heing relatively much slenderer 

 than the males. The weight of the female he states to be one-third that 

 of the male. 



