60 NATURAL HISTORY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



the last seen of them, or, if seeii again, they would be far out of gunshot." They conic ashore, he 

 observes, "more during windy weather than in calm, and in the night more than in the day; and 

 they have been observed to collect in the largest herds upon the beaches and rocks, near the full 

 and change of the moon. They delight in basking in the warm sunlight, and when no isolated rock 

 or shore is at hand, they will crawl upon any fragment of drift-wood that will float them. Although 

 gregarious, they do not herd in such large numbers as do nearly all others of the Seal tribe; further- 

 more, they may be regarded almost as mutes, in comparison with the noisy Sea Lions. It is very 

 rarely, however, any sound is uttered by them, but occasionally a quick bark or guttural whining, 

 and sometimes a peculiar bleating is heard when they are assembled together about the period of 

 bringing forth their young. At times, when a number meet in the neighborhood of rocks or reefs 

 distant from the mainland, they become quite playful, and exhibit much life in their gambols, 

 leaping out of the water or circling around upon the surface. . . . Its rapacity in pursuing 

 and devouring the smaller members of the piscatory tribes is quite equal, in proportion to its size, 

 to that of the orca. When grappling with a fish too large to be swallowed whole, it will hold and 

 handle it between its fore flippers, and, with the united work of its mouth . . . the wriggling 

 prize is demolished and devoured as quickly, and in much the same manner, as a squirrel would 

 eat a bur-covered nut. . . . 



"Leopard Seals are very easily captured when on shore, as a single blow with a club upon the 

 head will dispatch them. The Indians about Puget Sound take them in nets made of large hemp 

 line, using them in the same manner as seines, drawing them around beaches when the rookery is 

 on shore. They are taken by the whites for their oil and skins, but the Indians and Esquimaux 

 make great account of them for food." He adds that the natives of Puget Sound singe them before 

 a tire until the hair is consumed and the skin becomes crisp, when they are cut up and cooked as 

 best suits their taste. 1 



The apparent fondness of this animal, in common with other species of the family, for music, 

 has been often noted. 



The food of this species consists largely of fish, but, like other species, it doubtless varies 

 its fare with squids and shrimps. That it aspires to more epicurean tastes is evidenced by its 

 occasional capture of sea-birds. This they ingeniously accomplish by swimming beneath them as 

 they rest upon the water and seizing them. An eye-witness of this pastime relates an instance as 

 observed by him on the Scottish coast. "While seated on the bents," he writes, "watching a flock 

 of [herring] gulls that were fishing in the sea near Donnaouth, I was startled by their jerking high 

 in the air, and screaming in an unusual and excited manner. On no previous occasion have I 

 observed such a sensation in a gull-hood, not even when a black-head was being pursued, till he 

 disgorged his newly-swallowed fish, by that black- leg, the skua. The excitement was explained 

 by a Seal [presumably Phoca vitulina, this being the only species common at the locality in ques- 

 tion] showing above the water with a herring gull in his mouth. On his appearing the gulls 

 became ferocious, and struck furiously at the Seal, who disappeared with the gull in the water. 

 The Seal speedily reappeared, but on this occasion relinquished his victim on the gulls renewing 

 their attack. The liberated gull was so disabled as to be unable to fly, but it had strength enough 

 to hold ii]i its head as it drifted with the tide." 2 



They are evidently discriminating in their tastes, and not loath to avail themselves of a fine 

 salmon now and then not of their own catching. Their habit of plundering the, nets of the iisher- 

 men on the coast of Newfoundland has been already alluded to, but this peculiarity is evidently 



1 RCAMMON," C. M.: Marine Mammals, etc., pp. 166, 167. 

 ANOU8, W. ( 'itAiiiK, in Zoologist, 2d ser., vol. vi, 1871, p. 2762. 



