AMPHIBIAN MILLIONS. 299 



These "bachelor" seals are, I am sure, without exception, the 

 most restless animals, in the whole brute creation, which can boast 

 of a high organization. They frolic and lope about over the grounds 

 for hours without a moment's cessation, and their sleep after this is 

 exceedingly short, and it is ever accompanied by nervous twitch- 

 ings and uneasy muscular movements. They seem to be fairly 

 brimful and overrunning with spontaneity, to be surcharged with 

 fervid, electric life. 



Another marked feature observed among the multitudes of 

 " holluschickie " which have come under my personal observation 

 and auditory, and one very characteristic of this class, is that 

 nothing like ill-humor appears in all of their playing together. 

 They never growl or bite or show even the slightest angry feeling, 

 but are invariably as happy, one with another, as can be imagined. 

 This is a very singular trait. They lose it, however, with astonish- 

 ing rapidity when their ambition and strength develops and carries 

 them in due course of time to the rookery. 



The pups and yearlings have an especial fondness for sporting 

 on rocks which are just at the water's level and awash, so as to be 

 covered and uncovered as the surf rolls in. On the bare summit of 

 these wave-worn spots they will struggle and clamber, in groups of 

 a dozen or two at a time, throughout the whole day in endeavoring 

 to push off that one of their number which has just been fortunate 

 enough to secure a landing. The successor has, however, but a 

 brief moment of exultation in victory, for the next roller that comes 

 booming in, together with that pressure by its friends, turns the table, 

 and the game is repeated, with another seal on top. Sometimes, as 

 well as I could see, the same squad of "holluschickie " played for an 

 entire day and night, without a moment's cessation, around such a 

 rock as this off " Nah Speel " rookery ; still, in this observation I 

 may be mistaken, because those seals could not be told apart. 



That graceful unconcern with which fur-seals sport safely in, 

 among, and under booming breakers, during the prevalence of 

 numerous wild gales at the islands, has afforded me many consecu- 

 tive hours of spell-bound attention to them, absorbed in watching 

 their adroit evolutions within the foaming surf, that seemingly every 

 moment would, in its fierce convulsions, dash these hardy swim- 

 mers, stunned and lifeless, against those iron-bound foundations 

 of the shore which alone checked the furious rush of the waves. 

 Not at all Through the wildest and most ungovernable mood of 



