STELLEWS SEA LION. 



SEA LIONS OX THE FAHALLONE ISLANDS. 



congregate in breeding-grounds slightly apart. While polygamous, they have not the regular system," 

 nor give such attention to their harem as does the Callorhinus. In comparison with the latter, their 

 numbers on the Pribylofis are not great, in all between thirty and forty thousand. They are shy 

 creatures, and, as Elliott remarks, on the slightest approach of man, a stampede into the water is the 

 certain result. 



Their voice is said to be a deep and grand roar, and when in mass has been likened to the howling 

 of a tempest. The males come to these islands in the beginning of May, and the females a month later. 

 The young are soon bom, and at birth average twenty to twenty-five pounds, and two feet long, and 

 then are of a dark chocolate-brown colour, with great watery grey-blue eyes. They shed their coat in 

 October and become lighter, but do not precisely resemble their parents until they grow more adult. 



This animal being destitute of fur, its skin is of little value ; but their hides, their fat, 

 their flesh, their sinews, and intestines, are all useful to the Aleutian islanders. The last, the throat- 

 linings, and the skin of the flippers, are tanned into excellent leather, and both waterproof coats and 

 the natives' boots (tarbosars) az*e made out of them. Oil-vessels are made from the stomachs, the 



