MAMMALS. 695 



Of the true seals there are many species, but none is more familiar 

 than the little harbor-seal of our eastern coast, which occasionally makes 

 its way up the St. Lawrence to Lakes Ontario and Champlain, and even 

 to Onondaga Lake, near Syracuse. There are few sights more pleasing 

 than a number of these seals at play on some rocky shore. In their 

 gambols they seem to exhibit a fondness for sport and humor which one 

 would not expect in such animals, but their mournful howls at night dis- 

 play another side to their character. The fisherman, too, looks at another 

 aspect of these animals ; for they are expert fishermen themselves, and, 

 besides, they do not' hesitate to rob the nets of everything they may 

 contain. 



Farther north there are other seals, and all are as important to the 

 Eskimo as is the sea-lion to his Aleut cousin. A little farther south, at 

 the mouth of the St. Lawrence, is the great Atlantic seal-fishery, and it 

 is estimated that there nearly a million of these animals are slaughtered 

 annually for the sake of the oil and skins: their fur is of but very slight 

 value. All the seals are intelligent, and, as every zoological garden bears 

 witness, they may be taught a variety of tricks. 



Last of the seals are the hooded-seals and the sea-elephants, almost all 

 the existing pictures of which are faulty in regard to the peculiar struc- 

 tures of the head, from which they derive their names. The hooded-seal. 

 which lives in the north Atlantic, is usually said to have a hood, or cap, 

 on top of the head. In reality, this is an inflatable proboscis, overhanging 

 the mouth, and is found in the males only. What its function is has not 

 yet been determined. In the sea-elephants this same proboscis occurs 

 likewise in the males, but is much more fully developed. At a state of 

 rest it may be fifteen inches long, but when excited it elongates to a con- 

 siderably greater length. This proboscis, recalling that of the elephant, 

 gives the animal its name. There are two sea-elephants, one occurring on 

 the Pacific coast of North America, the other inhabiting the seas around 

 the South Pole. They are very large animals, the males averaging four- 

 teen feet in length, and occasionally measuring twenty, from the tip of the 

 proboscis to the end of the toes. 



Primates. 



In all the older works on natural history the lemurs, monkeys, apes, 

 and man came first, and then, in descending scale, followed the immense 

 host of animals which have been so summarily enumerated in the fore- 

 going pages. Hence the name Primates (primus, first) was very appli- 

 cable to them. Now the old system has been turned end for end; we 



