1.02 NATURAL HISTORY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



water by them arises from that power which they exert and apply with the hind feet. So far as 

 my observations on the Hair Seal go, I am inclined to agree with this opinion. 



All their movements in water, whether they are traveling to some objective point or are in 

 sport, are quick and joyous; and nothing is more suggestive of intense satisfaction and pure physi- 

 cal comfort, than is that spectacle which we can see every August, a short distance out at sea from 

 any rookery where thousands of old males and females are idly rolling over in the billows side by 

 side, rubbing and scratching with their fore- and hind-flippers, which are here and there stuck up 

 out of the water by their owners, like the lateen-sails of the Mediterranean feluccas, or, when the 

 hind-flippers are presented, like a " cat-o'-nine tails." They sleep in the water a great deal, too, 

 more than is generally supposed, showing that they do not come on land to rest very clearly not. 



LEAPING OUT OF WATER: " DOLPHIN- JUMPS." As I never detected the Sea Lions or the Hair 

 Seals leaping from the water around these islands, in those peculiar dolphin-like jumps which I have 

 hitherto described, I made a note of it early during my first season of observation, for corrobora- 

 tion in the next. It is so: neither the Sea Lion nor the Hair Seal here ever leaped from the ocean 

 in this agile and singular fashion heretofore described. Allen, so conservative usually, seems, how- 

 ever, to have fallen into an error by reading the notes of Mr. J. H. Blake, descriptive of the Sea 

 Lions of the Gallapagos Islands. As Allen quotes them entire in a foot-note, 1 I am warranted in 

 calb'ng attention to the fact, that no authentic record has as yet been made of such peculiar 

 swimming by Plwcidcc, or the sea-lion branch of the OtariidcK, My notice has been called to this 

 mistake by Professor Allen's own note, page 367, upon a quotation from my work, citing Mr. 

 Blake's notes above referred to, which are themselves very interesting, but do not even hint at a 

 dolphin-jump. 



How fast the Fur Seal can swim, when doing its best, I am naturally unable to state. I do know 

 that a squad of young " Holluschickie" followed the "Reliance," in which I was sailing, down from 

 the latitude of the Seal Islands to Akootan Pass with perfect ease, laying around the vessel, while 

 she was logging straight ahead, 14 knots to the hour. 



The Fur Seal, the Sea Lion, the Walrus, and the Hair Seal all swim around these islands, and 

 in these waters, submerged, extended horizontally and squarely upon their stomachs. I make this 

 note here because I am surprised to read 2 that the Harp (Hair) Seal's "favorite position when 

 swimming, as affirmed by numerous observers, is on the back or side, in which position they also 

 sleep in the water." Although this is a far-distant, geographically speaking, relative of the Hair 

 Seal of Saint Paul Island, yet the remarkable difference in fashion of swimming seems hardly 

 warranted, when the two animals are built exactly alike. Still, I have no disposition to question, 

 earnestly, the truth of the statement, inasmuch as I have learned of so many very striking radical 

 differences in habits of anima's as closely related, as to pause, ere seriously doubting this assertion 

 that a Harp Seal's favorite way in swimming is to lie upon its back when so doing. It is simply 

 an odd contradiction to the method employed by the Hair Seals of the North Pacific and of Bering 

 Sea. 



While I am unable to prove that the Fur Seal possesses the power to swim to a very great depth, 

 by actual tests instituted, yet I am free to say that it certainly can dive to the uttermost depths, 

 where its food-fish are known to live in the ocean; it surely gives full and ample evidence of 

 possessing the muscular power for that enterprise. In this connection, it is interesting to cite 

 the testimony of Mr. F. Borthen, the proprietor of the Fro Islands, a group of small islets off 

 Trondhjems Fiord, in Norway; this gentleman has had an opportunity of watching the Gray Seal 



1 History of Nortti American Pinnipeds, p. 211. 

 ALLEN: op. tit., p. 651. 



