596 CARNIVORA 



strongest and most successful in fight retain the best places near 

 the shore; the weaker have to crawl farther up on land, where the 

 chances of getting a sufficient number of spouses are not particularly 

 great. The fighting goes on with many feigned attacks and parades. 

 At first the contest concerns only the proprietorship of the soil. 

 The attacked, therefore, never follows his opponent beyond the 

 area he has once taken up, but haughtily lays itself down, when 

 the enemy has retired, in order to collect strength for a new 

 combat. The animal in such a case grunts with satisfaction, throws 

 himself on his back, scratches himself with his fore feet, attends to his 

 toilet, or cools himself by slowly fanning with one of his hind feet ; 

 but he is always on the alert and ready for a new fight, until he is 

 tired out and meets his match and is driven farther up from the 

 beach. In the middle of June the females come up from the sea. 

 At the water's edge they are received in a very gallant way by 

 some strong bulls that have succeeded in securing for themselves 

 places next the shore, and now are bent by fair means or foul on 

 annexing the females for their harem. But scarcely is the female 

 that has come up out of the water established with male No. 1 than 

 he rushes towards a new female on the surface of the water. Male 

 No. 2 now stretches out his neck and without ceremony lays hold 

 of the female of No. 1, to be afterwards exposed to a similar trick 

 by No. 3. In such cases the females are quite passive, never fall 

 out with each other, and bear with patience the severe wounds they 

 often get when they are pulled about by the combatants, now in 

 one direction, now in another. All the females are finally dis- 

 tributed in this way after furious combats among the males, those 

 of the latter who are nearest the beach getting from 1 2 to 1 5 consorts 

 to their share. Soon after landing the females bring forth their 

 young, which are treated with great indifference, and are protected 

 by their adopted father only within the limits of the harem. Next 

 comes the pairing season, and when it has passed there is an end to 

 the arrangement and distribution into families at first so strictly 

 maintained. The males, rendered lean by three months' absolute 

 fasting, by degrees leave the rookery, which is left in possession of 

 the Walruses and the young Sea Bears, including a number of 

 young males that have not ventured to the place before. In the 

 middle of September, when the young have learned to swim, the 

 place is quite abandoned, with the exception of single animals that 

 have for some reason remained behind." 



Family TRICHECHID^E. 



In many characters the single genus representing this family 

 is intermediate between the Otariidce and Phocidce, but it has a 

 completely aberrant dentition. It has no external ears, as in the 



