202 FLESH-EATERS OF THE SEA 



supply falls short of his necessities. But for two months 

 at the ' rookery ' he ' fights, makes love, never sleeps, never 

 drinks, and never eats.' There are many animals that 

 fast for longer periods, but it is always in a season when 

 their natural forces are torpid ; but the seals fast ' through- 

 out the most strenuous period each year of their intensely 

 strenuous life.' In any case food is scarce in the neigh- 

 bourhood of a rookery, for the appearance of the seals is 

 the signal for the fish to remove themselves elsewhere. 



What the pups live upon after the time they are weaned 

 until the whole colony goes to sea again is equally mys- 

 terious ; for if one is killed its stomach will be found to 

 contain only stones. 



By the end of October the breeding location is deserted ; 

 the thousands of its late tenants are scattering themselves 

 over the free ocean. No one can accurately gauge the 

 extent of their wanderings during the eight months which 

 elapse before they return to the earnest life of the rookery. 

 The killer whale probably knows something about it, for one 

 of these ocean wolves, when captured off the coast of Cali- 

 fornia, had no less than fourteen fairly large seals in its 

 capacious maw. Sharks take a bite out of the sleeping seal 

 as it lies afloat upon the curling waves, and the Polar bear 

 on the icefloes stealthily cuts off its retreat to the water. 



But these inroads upon the numbers of the seal family 

 count as nothing compared to the fierce toll which man 

 takes. Even within recent years a hundred thousand Fur 

 Seals have been taken in one season in the Pribyloff 

 Islands alone. ' It is a sordid, horrible business, which 

 cannot be written about nicely.' In their greed for gain 

 the sealers are charged with skinning their victims while 

 they are but stunned, and one writer (Burn-Murdoch) tells 

 of the newly flayed seal lifting itself redly towards heaven, 

 in the glowing sunshine, as if asking its Maker why this 

 thing should be. 



The Northern Fur Seal was likely to be exterminated 

 until Government intervention insisted upon giving the 

 seal a close time, protecting the immature animal, and 

 especially preventing the capture of the creatures when 

 on their way to the breeding grounds. Even though the 



