SEA LION. 



PLATE XXX. 



Class Mammalia. Order Amphibia Carnivora. Genus 



Phoea Jubata. 



ACCORDING to Steller, the length of the full-grown Sea- 

 Lion of the North is about fifteen feet, and its weight about 

 sixteen hundred. The males have stiff and crisp curled 

 hair about the neck, of which the females and young 

 are destitute. The females are shorter and more slender 

 than the males. The hide is very thick, and covered with 

 coarse strong hair of a reddish color like that of many cows, 

 which gets paler in the aged, and is of a deeper hue in the 

 young ; in the females it has a bright ochre tint, and is some- 

 times of a chesnut color in the young. The head is large j 

 the nose stretched out, and somewhat turned upwards ; the 

 eyes are very large, having the inner angle stained, as it 

 were, with cinnabar from the size of the caruncle ; the bright 

 pupil sparkles of a green color, and the rest of the eye is white 

 like ivory ; the eye-brows are bushy ; the external ears coni- 

 cal, upright, large, and distinct. That which especially, in 

 addition to the color and size of the animal, entitles it to the 

 name of Sea-Lion, is its inane of erect and undulating hair, 

 which augments its apparent size, and greatly increases its 

 beauty of form, like that which is seen in the king of beasts. 



This Sea-Lion inhabits the eastern shores of Kamskatka 

 and the Kurile Islands, and as 'far as Matsmai, where Capt. 

 Spunberg observed a certain island of the most picturesque 

 form, bordered with rocks resembling buildings, and swarm- 

 ing with these creatures, to which he gave the name of the 

 Palace of Sea-Lions. They abound in Behring's Island in 

 the autumn, whither they resort for the bringing forth of 

 their young. Steller also saw them in abundance on the 



Vol. ii 16. 



