34 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



on the uplands beyond, and a small boy had to be regularly employed to herd them where they could feed to 

 advantage. These transported Ovidce, though they could not possibly find anything in their eyes suggestive of 

 companionship among the seals, had their ears so charmed by the sheep-like accents of the female pinnipeds, as 

 to persuade them against their senses of vision and smell. 



The sound which arises from these great breeding-grounds of the fur-seal, where thousands upon tens of 

 thousands of angry, vigilant bulls are roaring, chuckling, and piping, and multitudes of seal-mothers are calling 

 in hollow, blaating tones to their young, that in turn respond incessantly, is simply defiance to verbal description. 

 It is, at a slight distance, softened into a deep booming, as of a cataract; and I have heard it, with a light, fair wind 

 to the leeward, as far as six miles out from land on the sea; and even in the thunder of the surf and the roar of 

 heavy gales, it will rise up and over to your ear for quite a considerable distance away. It is the monitor which 

 the sea-captains anxiously strain their ears for, when they run their dead reckoning up, and are laying to for the 

 fog to rise, in order that they may get their bearings of the land; once heard, they hold on to the sound and feel 

 their way in to anchor. The seal-roar at "Novastoshnah" during the summer of 1872, saved the life of the surgeon*, 

 and six natives belonging to the island, who had pushed out on an egging-trip from Northeast point to Walrus 

 island. I have sometimes thought, as I have listened through the night to this volume of extraordinary sound, 

 which never ceases with the rising or the setting of the sun throughout the entire season of breeding, that it was 

 fully equal to the churning boom of the waves of Niagara. Night and day, throughout the season, this din upon 

 the rookeries is steady and constant. 



EFFECTS OF HEAT ON THE SEALS. The seals seem to suffer groat inconvenience and positive misery from a 

 comparatively low degree of heat. I have often been surprised to observe that, when the temperature was 40 and 

 48 Fahr. on land during the summer, they would show everywhere signs of distress, whenever they made any 

 exertion in moving or fighting, evidenced by panting and the elevation of their hind flippers, which they used 

 incessantly as so many fans. With the thermometer again higher, as it is at rare intervals, standing at 55 and GO , 

 they then seem to suffer even when at rest ; and at such times the eye is struck by the kaleidoscopic appearance of 

 a rookery in any of these rookeries where the seals are spread out in every imaginable position their lithesome 

 bodies can assume, all industriously fan themselves ; they use sometimes the fore-flippers as ventilators, as it were, 

 by holding them aloft motionless, at the same time fanning briskly with the hinder ones, according as they sit or lie. 

 This wavy motion of fanning or flapping gives a hazy indistinctness to the whole scene, which is difficult to express 

 in language ; but one of the most prominent characteristics of the fur-seal, and perhaps the most unique feature, is 

 this veiy fanning manner in which they use their flippers, when seen on the breeding-grounds at this season. They 

 also, when idle, as it were, off-shore at sea, lie on their sides in the water with only a partial exposure of the body, 

 the head submerged, and then hoist up a fore- or hind-flipper clear out of the water, at the same time scratching 

 themselves or enjoying a momentary nap ; but in this position there is no fanning. I say "scratching", because, 

 the seal, in common with all animals, is preyed upon by vermin, and it has a peculiar species of louse, or parasitic 

 tick, that belongs to it. 



SLEEPING AFLOAT. Speaking of the seal as it rests in the water, leads me to remark that they seem to sleep 

 as sound and as comfortably, bedded on the waves or rolled by the swell, as they do on the land : they lie on their 

 backs, fold the fore-flippers down across the chest, and turn the hind ones up and over, so that the tips rest on their 

 necks and chins, thus exposing simply the nose and the heels of the hind flippers above water, nothing else being 

 seen. In this position, unless it is very rough, the seal sleeps as serenely as did the prototype of that memorable 

 song, who was " rocked in the cradle of the deep ". 



FASTING OF THE SEALS AT THE ROOKERIES : INTESTINAL WORMS. All the bulls, from the very first, that 

 have been able to hold their positions, have not left them from the moment of their landing for a single instant, 

 night or day; nor will they do so until the end of the rutting season, which subsides entirety between the 1st and 

 10th of August, beginning shortly after the coming of the cows in June. Of necessity, therefore, this causes them 

 to fast, to abstain entirely from food of any kind, or water, for three months at least; and a few of them actually 

 stay out four months, in total abstinence, before going back into the water for the first time after "hauling up" in 

 May; they then return as so many bony shadows of what they were only a few months anteriorly ; covered with 

 wounds, abject and spiritless, they laboriously crawl back to the sea to renew a fresh lease of life. 



Such physical endurance is remarkable enough alone; but it is simply wonderful, when we come to associate 

 this fasting with the unceasing activity, restlessness, and duty devolved upon the bulls as the heads of largo 

 families. They do not stagnate like hibernating bears in caves ; there is not one torpid breath drawn by them 

 in the whole period of their fast; it is evidently sustained and accomplished by the self-absorption of their own 

 fat, with which they are so liberally supplied when they first come out from the sea and take up their positions on 

 the breeding-grounds; and which gradually disappears, until nothing but the staring hide, protrudiug tendons and 

 bones mark the limit of their abstinence. There must be some remarkable provision made by nature for ihe 



* Dr. Otto Cramer. The suddenness with which fog and wind shut down and sweep over the st'a here, even when the day opens most 

 auspiciously for a short boat-voyage, has so alarmed the natives in times past, that a visit is now never made by them from island to 

 island, unless on one of the company's vessels. Several bidarrahs have never been heard from, which, in earlier times, attempted to sail, 

 with picked crews of the natives, from one island to the other. 



