AMPHIBIAN MILLIONS. 289 



the young pups into the water by the old ones, in order to teach 

 them this process, as certain authors have positively affirmed. 

 There is not the slightest supervision by the mother or father of 

 the pup, from the first moment of his birth, in this respect, until 

 he leaves for the North Pacific, full-fledged with amphibious power. 

 At the close of the breeding season, every year, the pups are 

 restlessly and constantly shifting back and forth over the rookery 

 ground of their birth, in large squads, sometimes numbering thou- 

 sands upon thousands. In the course of this change of position 

 they all sooner or later come in contact with the sea ; they then 

 blunder into the water for the first time, in a most awkward, un- 

 gainly manner, and get out as quick as they can ; but so far from 

 showing any fear or dislike of this, their most natural element, 

 as soon as they rest from their exertion they are immediately ready 

 for a new trial, and keep at it, provided the sea is not too stormy or 

 rough. During all this period of self-tuition they seem thoroughly 

 to enjoy the exercise, in spite of their repeated and inevitable dis- 

 comfitures at the beginning. 



That " podding " of these young pups in the rear of the great 

 rookeries of St. Paul, is one of the most striking and interest- 

 ing phases of this remarkable exhibition of highly-organized life. 

 When they first bunch together they are all black, for they have 

 not begun to shed the natal coat ; they shine with an unctuous, 

 greasy reflection, and grouped in small armies or great regiments 

 on the sand-dune tracts at Northeast Point, they present a most ex- 

 traordinary and fascinating sight. Although the appearance of the 

 ''holluschickie"at English Bay fairly overwhelms the observer with 

 an impression of its countless multitudes, yet I am free to declare 

 that at no one point in this evolution of the seal-life, during its re- 

 productive season, have I been so deeply impressed by a sense of 

 overwhelming enumeration, as I have when, standing on the summit 

 of Cross Hill, I looked down to the southward and westward over 

 a reach of six miles of alternate grass and sand-dune stretches, mir- 

 rored upon which were hundreds of thousands of these little black 

 pups, spread in sleep and sport within this restricted field of vision. 

 They appeared as countless as the grains of that sand upon which 

 they rested ! 



By September 15th, all the pups born during the year have 

 become familiar with the water ; they have all learned to swim, 

 and are now nearly all down by the water's edge, skirting in 

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