AMPHIBIAN MILLIONS. 303 



not be distinguished apart, either by color or size, shape or action ; 

 the yearlings of both sexes have the same steel-gray backs and 

 white stomachs, and are alike in behavior and weight. 



Next year those yearling females, which are now trooping out 

 with these youthful males on the hauling-grounds, will repair to 

 the rookeries, but their male companions will be obliged to return 

 alone to this same spot. 



About the 15th and 20th of every August they have become 

 perceptibly "stagey," or, in other words, their hair is well under 

 way in shedding. All classes, with the exception of the pups, go 

 through this renewal at this time every year. The process requires 

 about six weeks between the first dropping or falling out of the old 

 over-hair and its full substitution by the new : this change takes 

 place, as a rule, between August 1st and September 28th. 



The fur is shed, but it is so shed that the ability of a seal to 

 take to the water and stay there, and not be physically chilled or 

 disturbed during its period of moulting, is never impaired. The 

 whole surface of these extensive breeding-grounds, traversed over 

 by me after the seals had gone, was literally matted with shedded 

 hair and fur. This under-fur or pelage is, however, so fine and 

 delicate, and so much concealed and shaded by the coarser over- 

 hair, that a careless eye or a superficial observer might be pardoned 

 in failing to notice the fact of its dropping and renewal. 



The yearling cows retain the colors of the old coat in the new, 

 when they shed for the first time, and so repeat them from that 

 time on, year after year, as they live and grow old. The young 

 three-year-olds and the mature cows look exactly alike, as far as 

 color goes, when they haul up at first and dry out on the rookeries, 

 every June and July. 



The yearling males, however, make a radical change when they 

 shed for the first time, since they come out from their " staginess " 

 in a nearly uniform dark gray, and gray and black mixed, and 

 lighter, with dark ochre to whitish on the upper and under parts, 

 respectively. This coat, next year, when they appear as two-year- 

 olds, shedding for the three-year-old coat, is a very much darker 

 gray, and so on to the third, fourth, and fifth seasons ; then after 

 this, with age, they begin to grow more gray and brown, with 

 a rufous-ochre and whitish-tipped " wig " on the shoulders. Some 

 of the very old bulls change in their declining years to a uniform 

 shade, all over, of dull-grayish ochre. The full glory and beauty of 



