a keeper's hand, and they are trained to do this: the Spotted 

 Dolphins, however, had to be prevented from doing so because 

 they were so quick and jumped so much farther thai they started 

 leaping right out of the tank 



THE RETURN OF THE GIANTS 



There is another huge sea beast that once lived in enormous 

 numbers around islands both in the far southern parts of the 

 southern hemisphere and on the islands off this coast. It too 

 appeared to have been exterminated at the end of the last cen- 

 tury, but it also has comparatively recently reappeared rather 

 mysteriously from nobody knows exactly where. This is the 

 mighty Sea Elephant or, alternatively. Elephant Seal (Miroungaj. 

 The males may measure eighteen feet and have a fifteen-foot 

 girth; they are equipped with an eighteen-inch trunk whidi 

 normally flops down over the muzzle but which, being connected 

 with the nasal passages within, can be inflated and raised almost 

 upright. When alarmed or mating, the bulls rear the forepart of 

 their bodies vertically, raise this trunk, and give rise to tremen- 

 dous bellows and roars. They feed on a combination of fish, 

 cuttlefish, and seaweed, and they are quite mobile if not agile 

 when in the sea, but they spend a lot of time on land sleeping 

 and snoring loudly, after lumbering laboriously out of the water 

 The males maintain harems, and once a year these creatures 

 indulge a remarkable habit. They are normally clothed in short, 

 sparse, grayish brown hair, and like other mammals they go 

 through regular molts; but instead of just shedding their hair 

 piecemeal as the next season's growth comes in. they shed the 

 whole outer layer of their skins. As a result, they present a quite 

 revolting sight, being bright pink and naked and looking as if 

 they had been skinned alive and parboiled, a fantasy augmented 

 by their endless moaning, belching, and snoring. 



These vast corpulent mammals have now made a fine come- 

 back and have large colonies on the Guadalupe, San Benito, and 

 Cedros Islands off the coast of Baja California, and they have 

 even appeared on the islands off the coast of this province. The 

 Southern Sea Lion also occurs along this coast, and there are 

 now also once again a few of the small Southern Fur Seal or 

 Sea Bear. 



HONORABLE ANCESTORS 



Each time we have touched on the Pacific coast, we have had 

 occasion to mention kelp hcds^ Though most people have heard 

 of these beds, and although we are taught that kelp is a seaweed, 

 very few of us realize the significance and uniqueness of this 

 phenomenon. 



There is nothing like this anywhere else in the world. To 

 explain, it is an almost continuous strip or bell of seaweed 

 stretching for thousands of miles, a little offshore, from Alaska 

 to Baja California and, in isolated patches, a bit farther in both 

 directions. It is a result of the combination of a narrow conti- 

 nental shelf and a cool current cutting south through a warm 

 ocean, and nowhere is this more prominent than off the coast 

 of this province. Under bright sunlight, stretching to the horizon 

 up and down that coast, and when the ocean is so calm it 



A Washingtonia, Ihe only indigenous palm in this province 

 and one of Ihe grandest on this continent. Often the dead 

 leaves clothe the whole trunk to its base. 



