198 FLESH-EATERS OF THE SEA 



can crack pebbles as large as goose eggs like nuts, and does 

 do so, apparently for sport, so that when we drew Sandy 

 from underneath his fallen foe, and prising open the jaw, 

 released his arm, it looked more like some shreds of red rag 

 than anything else.' 



' The upshot of the raid was twenty-one elephants killed. 

 We were a study in ruffianism " gaumed" all over with 

 blood and grease, stumbling over the smallest stone for 

 very weariness, yet compelled to toil on with only a few 

 minutes' rest at long intervals all through the night at the 

 unfamiliar work of skinning those great beasts and securing 

 the masses of fat-laden hide.' 



SEA LION (Otaria stelleri). 

 Coloured Plate XII. Fig. i. 



The seals already described either possess no external ears 

 or else they are very small ; in the genus Otaria, of which 

 the Sea Lion is the largest, they may be short, but, never- 

 theless, are very distinct. There are differences in the skull 

 and teeth. All the seal tribe possess strong canine teeth, 

 but the Sea Lion has six molars instead of four, as in the 

 common seal. In addition, the eared seals make progress 

 on land or ice with far more facility than the true seals. 

 The hind flippers are placed at right angles to the body, 

 and these the creature gathers up underneath it, raises itself 

 on the fore limbs, and then gives a push. The movement 

 is extremely cumbersome, but the animal will contrive to 

 mount a slope that a man could not compass without much 

 exertion ; and the Sea Lion is often found quite four miles 

 from the edge of the water. 



The home of Steller's Sea Lion is the Bering Sea, and 

 as far South as the Kurile Islands on the one side of the 

 North Pacific and California on the other. In the latter 

 case a rookery of Sea Lions is strictly preserved by the 

 American Government, or probably long ere this the animal 

 would have been exterminated in those waters, as it has been 

 in many other regions after a century and a half of constant 

 persecution. 



The male Sea Lion, of eleven or twelve feet in length and 



