108 NATURAL HISTORY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



heard from the natives would point clearly to the fact, that they know nothing really worthy of 

 scientific attention ; but in regard to the Fur Seal I have had unusual advantages, and an extended 

 experience, ranging over four consecutive breeding-seasons, in which thousands of these animals, 

 all perfectly in accord, have passed within the scope of my observation and record. 



GENITALIA OF THE MALE AND FEMALE FUR SEAL. Considering the male Callorhinus: 

 When it is first born the external organs of generation are not evidenced to the sight, and it 

 requires a nice touch to find them under the skin. It is not until this animal has rounded off the 

 second year of its existence, that the testes descend and become externally exposed: first faintly, 

 but rapidly succeeding to the same prominence and same relative position that they occupy in the 

 example of the dog. When this creature becomes three and four years old, its testes hang pendant 

 in a somewhat flabby scrotum, which in the old male is as pendulous as that of an ordinary 

 bull; the sack is smooth and shiny, entirely devoid of hair, and black, with a slightly wrinkled 

 surface. The sheath of the penis is so merged with the skin of the abdomen that it does not lie 

 ribbed there and prominent as in the other carnivora ; but it is an erectile organ, with a bony 

 skeleton, measuring, when fully developed, from five to seven inches in length. The females have 

 their parts of generation exactly as they are described by Owen and Huxley which descriptions 

 are based upon examples of the well-known Phocidcc; their external organs are entirely concealed, 

 by the fact that the rectum terminates on the opposite side of the vulva; and a common, somewhat 

 flaccid, sphincter closes both apertures. In other words, the anal and. genital openings of the 

 female are united into a single one, through which the regular secretions of the body pass, and the 

 forces of reproduction are received and introduced. Thus, while the female PJwcidce correspond 

 in this respect with the female Otariidce, yet the extraordinary development of the male organs in 

 the Otariida; are quite marked, when contrasted with those peculiar to the Phocidas. 1 



No EVIDENCE OF BUTTING ODORS: SPEEDY BIRTH OF PUPS. When the male Fur Seals 

 or " Seecatchie," as the natives call them a term implying strength and virility arrive first 

 upon the breeding grounds, long before the coming of the females, as described in a preceding 

 chapter of this monograph, they give no evidence of being in rut ; nor do they emit any odor 

 during the rest of the season which at all resembles the " rutting odor " ascribed to many animals. 

 I call attention to this because a common blunder has been made, and likely will be made, whereby 

 the smell upon the rocks, so far-reaching and so offensive, is called the " rutting funk." It is, as 

 I have also stated, due to other causes which are conspicuous and which have been specified here- 

 tofore. When the females came to land upon the breeding grounds, I noticed that, with the 

 exception of the virgin cows, they were heavy with young ; that the period of their gestation must 

 soon culminate by the birth of their offspring, which usually took place within a couple of hours 

 after they reached the shore, or within as many days at the most. Frequently I have observed 

 the mothers land, and ere they were dry the young would be expelled ; and the thought rose then 

 to my mind " how wonderfully well-timed the return of those gravid cows was " for, in spite of 

 tempests and currents, and many of them quite two and three thousand miles from their winter 



Hair Seal (Monachus dibit-enter, very likely) is, in most respects, correct ; while Bnffon, the celebrated French zoologist, 

 as late as 1785, has not, despite his vast advantages, been nearly as accurate in his treatment of the Pinnipeds. That 

 this old Grecian philosopher, three hundred years before the Christian era, should have done better in this respect 

 than that world-wide distinguished academician did more than two thousand years afterward, affords an entertaining 

 suggestion as to the alleged degeneracy of the present age, especially so since the monument erected over Buffon's 

 remains bears au inscription which declares that he possessed ' a mind equal to the majesty of nature." (!) 



1 See Owen's Anatomy of Vertebrates," vol. iii, p. 699, London, 1868. The Phocidce are the subject of this eminent 

 author's examination and report. 



