IX.] BEE A KING UP OF THE BOOKS RY. 199 



to fifteen is said to be an average number. Those who are weaker, 

 and compelled to take up outlying posts at the back of the rookery, 

 have very much fewer, and among these it is but seldom that more 

 than three or four are seen. But althouoii after a little while all 

 prospect of adding fresh beauties to Ins seraglio is gone, the 

 matrimonial duties of the unhappy Benedict still keep him closely 

 imprisoned to the little plot of ground upon which he commenced 

 housekeeping. He dares not leave his charges for a moment, 

 or they would be instantly appropriated by his neighbours ; and 

 thus, cut off from the sea and from food of every kind, he endures 

 a fast so protracted and absolute that at the end of his three months 

 of married life he is reduced to a mere shadow of his former seK. 

 Even we, with all the advantages of civilisation, cannot show greater 

 incentives to the contmuance of a bachelor life ! 



By the beginnmg or middle of August the rookeries lose all 

 trace of the careful organisation they previously displayed. The 

 pups go down to the water's edge and make their first essays in the 

 art of swimming, — an art which seems, curiously enough, to be not 

 natural but acquired. The bulls, emaciated and scarred with their 

 many fights, regain the sea and swim about in the neighbourhood of 

 the island, though for the most part they do not land again upon the 

 rookeries. Some of them are not so fortunate, and either perish 

 in the fighting, or become so injured that they are forced to leave. 

 The latter, we were told, generally herd together by themselves in 

 some undisturbed spot to recover from their wounds, — an hospital, 

 in short, where Nature, the most successful of all physicians, in 

 most instances effects a cure. 



The male fur seal differs in a most striking manner from the 

 female. For the first two or three years they are much alike in 

 size and appearance, but after that age the female practically ceases 

 to grow. It is far otherwise with the bull, who apparently gains 

 in weight until his death, and thus becomes enormously greater than 

 the female in size. This increase in bulk is chiefly noticeable in 

 the fore quarters of the animal, the throat and shoulders especially, 



