358 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



You will notice that if you disturb and drive off any portion of 

 the rookery, by walking up in plain sight, those nearest to you 

 will take to the water instantly, swim out to a distance of fifty 

 yards or so, leaving their pups behind, helplessly sprawled around 

 and about the rocks at your feet. Huddled up all together in the 

 surf in two or three packs or squads, the startled parents hold 

 their heads and necks high out of the sea, and peer keenly at you : 

 then, all roaring in an incessant concert, they make an orchestra 

 to which those deep sonorous tones of the organ in that great Mor- 

 mon tabernacle, at Salt Lake City, constitute the fittest and most 

 adequate resemblance. 



You will witness an endless tide of these animals travelling to 

 the water, and a steady stream of their kind coming out, if you but 

 keep in retirement and do not disturb them. When they first issue 

 from the surf they are a dark chocolate brown-and-black, and 

 glisten ; but, as their coats dry off, the color becomes an iron-gray, 

 passing into a bright golden rufous, which covers the entire body 

 alike shades of darker brown on the pectoral patches and sterno- 

 pectoral region. After getting entirely dry, they seem to grow 

 exceedingly uneasy, and act as though oppressed by heat, until 

 they plunge back into the sea, never staying out, as the fur-seal 

 does, day after day, and week after week. The females and the 

 young males frolic in and out of the water, over rocks awash, inces- 

 santly, one with another, just as puppies play upon a green sward ; 

 and, when weary, stretch themselves out in any attitude that will 

 fit the character of that rock, or the lava-shingle upon which they 

 may happen to be resting. The movements of their supple spines, 

 and ball-and-socket joint attachments, permit of the most extra- 

 ordinary contortions of a trunk and limbs, all of which, no matter 

 how distressing to your eyes, they seem actually to relish. But 

 the old battle-scarred bulls of the harem stand or lie at their posi- 

 tions day and night without leaving them, except to take a short 

 bath when the coast is clear, until the end of the season. 



When swimming, the sea-lion lifts its head only above the sur- 

 face long enough to take a deep breath, then drops down a few 



their extra avoirdupois renders them very conspicuous, even among large 

 gatherings of their kind ; they seem to exhibit a sense of self-oppression then, 

 quite as marked as is that subsequent air of depression worn when, later, they 

 have starved out this load of surplus blubber, and are shambling back to the 

 sea, for recuperation and rest. 



