356 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



flesh than would have held my hand ; fired into almost supernatural 

 rage, the injured lion retaliated, quick as a flash, in kind ; the hair 

 flew from both of them into the air, the blood streamed down in 

 frothy torrents, while high above the boom of the breaking waves, 

 and shrill deafening screams of water-fowl over head, rose the 

 ferocious, hoarse, and desperate roar of these combatants. 



Though provided with flippers, to all external view, as the fur- 

 seal is, the sea-lion cannot, however, make use of them at all in the 

 same free manner. The fur-seal may be driven five or six miles in 

 twenty-four hours under the most favorable conditions of cool, moist 

 weather ; the " seevitchie," however, can only go two miles, the 

 weather and roadway being the same. When driven, a sea-lion bal- 

 ances and swings its long and heavy neck, as a lever, to and fro, 

 with every hitching up behind of its posterior limbs, which it sel- 

 dom raises from the ground, drawing them up after the fore-feet 

 with a sliding drag over the grass or sand and rocks, as the case 

 may be, ever and anon pausing to take a sullen and savage survey 

 of the field and the natives who are urging it. 



The sea-lion is polygamous, but it does not maintain any regu- 

 lar system and method in preparing for and attending to its harem, 

 like that so finely illustrated on the breeding-grounds of the fur- 

 seal ; and it is not so numerous, comparatively speaking. There 

 are not, according to my best judgment, over ten or twelve thou- 

 sand of these animals altogether on the breeding-grounds of the 

 Pribylov Islands. It does not haul more than a few rods anywhere 

 or under any circumstances back from the sea. It cannot be visited 

 and inspected by men as the fur-seals are, for it is so shy and sus- 

 picious that on the slightest warning of such an approach, a stam- 

 pede into the water is sure to result. 



That noteworthy, intelligent courage of a fur-seal, though it 

 does not possess half the size nor one-quarter of the muscular 

 strength of a sea-lion, is entirely wanting in the huge bulk and 

 brain of the Eumetopias. A boy with a rattle or a pop-gun could 

 stampede ten thousand sea-lion bulls in the height of a breeding- 

 season to the water, and keep them there for the rest of the time.* 



* That the sea-lion bull should be so cowardly in the presence of man, 

 yet so ferocious and brave toward one another and other amphibious animals, 

 struck me as a line of singular contrast with the undaunted bearing of a fur- 

 seal " seecatch," which, though being not half the size or possessing muscular 

 power to anything like its development in the "seevitchie," nevertheless 



