THE ALASKAN SEA-LION. 355 



The bulk and power of the adult sea-lion male will be better 

 appreciated when I say that it has an average length of ten and 

 eleven feet osteologically, with an enormous girth of eight to nine 

 feet around the chest and shoulders ; but while the anterior parts 

 of its frame are as perfect and powerful on land as in sea, those 

 posterior are ridiculously impotent when the huge beast leaves its 

 favorite element. Still, when hauled up beyond the reach of the 

 brawling surf, as it rears itself, shaking the spray from its tawny 

 chest and short grizzly mane, it has a leonine appearance and bear- 

 ing, greatly enhanced as the season advances by a rich golden- 

 rufous color of its coat ; the savage gleam of its expression is due 

 probably, to the sinister muzzle, and cast of its eye. This optical 

 organ is not round and full, soft and limpid, like the fur-seal's, but 

 it is an eye like that of a bull-dog : it is small and clearly shows 

 under its heavy lids the white or sclerotic coat, with a light-brown 

 iris. Its teeth gleam and glisten in pearly whiteness against a dark 

 tongue and the shadowy recesses of its wide, deep mouth. The 

 long, sharp, broad-based canines, when bared by the wrathful 

 snarling of its gristled lips, glittered more wickedly, to my eye, 

 than the keenest sword ever did in the hand of man. 



With these teeth alone, backed by the enormous muscular power 

 of a mighty neck and broad shoulders, the sea-lion confines its bat- 

 tles to its kind, spurred by terrible energy and heedless and persist- 

 ent brute courage. No animals that I have ever seen in combat pre- 

 sented a more savage or more cruelly fascinating sight than did a 

 brace of old sea-lion bulls which met under my eyes near the Gar- 

 den Cove at St. George. 



Here was a sea-lion rookery the outskirts of which I had trod- 

 den upon for the first time. Two aged males, surrounded by their 

 meek, polygamous families, were impelled towards each other by 

 those latent fires of hate and jealousy which seemed to burst forth 

 and fairly consume the angry rivals. Opening with a long, round, 

 vocal prelude, they gradually came together, as the fur-seal bulls 

 do, with averted heads, as though the sight of each other was sick- 

 ening but fight they must. One would play against the other for 

 an unguarded moment in which to assume the initiative, until it 

 had struck its fangs into the thick skin of its opponent's jowl ; 

 then, clinching its jaws, was not shaken off until the struggles of 

 its tortured victim literally tore them out, leaving an ugly, gaping 

 wound for the sharp eye-teeth cut a deeper gutter in the skin and 



