CALIFORNIAN SEA- LI ON 263 



to examine the stomach-contents of a large number of these animals, and found to 

 my surprise that the great bulk of their food consisted of squids, hundreds of whose 

 beaks and pens were found in their stomachs, while in only a few instances were 

 any traces of fish discovered." 



This is valuable testimony so far as it goes, but the advocates of the slaughter 

 might urge that what is true of fur-seals may not hold good in the case of sea-lions. 

 Dr. Merriam is, however, fully prepared for such possible objections; and quotes 

 the results of observations made by Professor Dyche upon the stomachs of twenty- 

 five sea-lions he had the opportunity of dissecting. In the case of eight of these 

 the stomach was found to contain remains of cuttles and squids, several being 

 completely filled with large pieces of the giant squid. Moreover, although salmon 

 were being caught in numbers by fishermen in the same spot and at the same time, 

 not a bone or a scale was detected in the stomachs of the sea-lions. Of the seventeen 

 other sea-lions, which were examined at another place, the stomachs of eight were 

 filled with the flesh of the giant squid, two were gorged with large cuttlefish, while 

 the remaining seven contained pens and beaks of squids, varying in quantity from 

 about half a pint to a quart or more. 



" Professor Dyche was told that there were no fish within two or three miles 

 of the sea-lion rookeries near the camp, as the sea-lions had caught or driven them 

 away. In the face of this statement, he himself caught a dozen rock-cod one 

 morning between shore and the seal-rocks ; and his boatman, an old salmon fisher- 

 man, caught plenty of rock-cod, weighing from one to eight pounds each, within 

 sixty feet of the flat rock where from one to three-hundred sea-lions landed daily. 

 The water close to these rocks, where the sea-lions had lived for ages, proved to be 

 the best fishing-ground in the locality. Professor Dyche states further that he 

 landed a number of times on the rocky islands where in places the excrement from 

 the sea-lions formed a layer a foot thick. He hunted through this for fish-bones 

 and scales, without being able to discover a single one. On the other hand, the 

 tough pens from the backs of the squids were abundant." 



Although the fishermen were loud in their denunciations of the sea-lions as 

 salmon-fishers, they were quite unable to substantiate their assertions by ocular 

 demonstration ; and their surprise was great when they were shown the masses of 

 squid and cuttle taken from the stomachs of the seals. It is no argument to say 

 that sea-lions in captivity will feed greedily and thrive upon a fish-diet ; — of course 

 they will, rather than perish from starvation. Neither does it much affect the 

 question when salmon in nets are found bitten or eaten, since this may be the work 

 in many cases of otters or sharks, although it is quite likely that the sea-lions 

 themselves might sometimes be tempted by such attractive prey. 



Dr. Merriam is careful not to spoil his case by attempting to prove too much. 

 " It is not claimed," he writes, " that sea-lions in their native element never eat fish ; 

 at the same time the only actual evidence we have on the subject fails utterly to 

 substantiate the allegations of the fishermen. On the contrary, all the twenty-five 

 stomachs of sea-lions examined by Professor Dyche contained remains of squids 

 or cuttle-fishes, and not one contained so much as the scale or bone of a fish. And 

 is it not significant that in former years, when sea-lions were much more plentiful 

 than now, salmon also were vastly more abundant ? If the fishermen will look 



