A SEALSKIN JACKET AT HOME 117 



the Seal sleeps so soundly that I have crept up and 

 pulled his whiskers before he awoke. In August the 

 homes break up, all is in an uproar, and the 'choo-choo- 

 choo ' call of the female sounds loud above the surf, 

 though it is December before the last male has left for 

 the winter feeding-grounds. 



"The Fur Seal's brother, the Sea Lion, haunts these 

 same islands, though he is hunted elsewhere with Otter 

 spears and guns. He is useful chiefly to the natives of 

 the Aleutian Islands, giving them all that the Walrus 

 yields the Eskimo. 



" The California Sea Lion looks much like a male 

 Seal, but his neck is straight and thinner and his front 

 flippers are cased in mittens without even a thumb, 

 while the Seal, you see by the picture, wears short- 

 fingered gloves. This Sea Lion wears no fur, but is 

 covered with short hair, which varies in color with the 

 season from yellow to dark brown. His voice is a deep 

 lion's roar that can be heard above the storm, and his 

 food is almost like the Seal's, fish, shell-fish, crabs, 

 and a few sea-birds. His flesh is not bad eating, and 

 the fat and blubber are without the evil smell that 

 makes the Seal so sickening to handle. 



"This Sea Lion is shy, keener of eye and ear than 

 the Sea Bear, and must be hunted by moonlight, the 

 driving season being early autumn. When the Lions 

 awake suddenly, like the Seals they start to escape the 

 way they happen to face, some going seaward, the 

 others being slowly driven up to the villages, for they 

 can only creep and hobble along, and they have none of 

 the cleverness of the Fur Seal. These also we will 

 leave at the killing grounds ; to follow them would only 



