110 NATURAL HISTORY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



its feet, for the moment it appears from within the natal walls it seems to be in full possession of 

 all its faculties; its eyes are wide open, and its voice is raised in weak, husky bleatings, as it feebly 

 paddles around, still attached to the umbilical cord, which it, by its own efforts, pulls asunder as 

 it flounders about on the rocks or ground of the rookery. The mother, in the mean time, gives her 

 offspring none of that attention so marked in the case of the Ganidce and other carnivores, not even 

 turning to look at it; but she draws herself up with an expression of intense comfort and relief, 

 throwing her head back with a gentle, swaying motion, as she fans herself slowly with either one 

 or both of the hind-flippers. She also pays no attention to the cleansing of her own person, the 

 after-birth lying undisturbed by her, it being speedily trampled under foot and ground out of 

 recognizance by the restless multitudes around her, which pass to and fro. The pup quickly dries 

 off, with rapid alternations of short naps with awakenings, in which it gets up and on its flippers 

 to essay brief scrambles over the rocks and ground until, in nosing about, it claims the attention 

 of its mother (sometimes hours after birth) : this she gives by gently elevating her abdomen and 

 turning her parts posteriorly, so that one or two of the obscure teats, filled with milk, can be seized 

 by the hungry pup, which now nurses therefrom greedily, even to gorging itself. 



MILK OF THE FUR SEAL. The milk of the Fur Seal mother is very rich and creamy, and 

 the secretion is always abundant, but there is not, under any circumstances, the enlarged udder 

 and mammae peculiar to dogs and similar animals ; the nipples are scarcely distinguishable, even 

 when exposed to the reach and notice of the young. 



IRREGULAR FEEDING OF THE PUPS. The umbilicus of the pup rapidly sloughs off, and the 

 little fellow grows apace, nursing to-day heartily in order that he may, perhaps, go the next two, 

 three, or four days without another drop from the maternal fount; for it is the habit of the mother 

 Seal to regularly and frequently leave her young, on this spot of its birth, to repair for food in the 

 sea; she is absent on these excursions, on account of the fish not coming inshore within a radius 

 of at least one hundred miles of the breeding-grounds, through intervals varying, as I have said, 

 from a single day to three or four, as the case may be. The manner in which she returns after 

 feeding, and in which she singles out by scent, and at a glance, her own offspring from many 

 thousands surrounding it, I have clearly described in a foregoing chapter. 1 



PRELIMINARY ADVANCES OF THE SEXUAL UNION. The pup being born, the cow rapidly passes 

 into "heat." I have noticed examples where ten hours only elapsed between the event of the birth 

 and that of copulation, and I doubt not of full impregnation for another period. But as a rule 

 forty-eight hours is a fair figure to express the time from the birth to the state known as "being 

 in heat." The cow always makes the first advances to the bull. If she is one of the earlier subjects 

 for his attention, the union is soon accomplished ; but should she be of the later applicants in his 



1 When the females first come ashore there is DO sign of affection manifested, whatever, between the sexes. The 

 males are surly aud morose, and the females entirely indifferent to such reception. They are, however, subjected to 

 very harsh treatment sometimes in the progress of battles between the males for their possession, and a few of them 

 are badly bitten and lacerated every season. 



One of the cows that arrived at Nah Speel, Saint Paul Island, early in June, 1872, was treated to a cruel mutilation 

 in this manner, under my eyes. When she had finally lauded on the ban-en rocks of one of the numerniiH "Seecatchie" 

 at the water front of this small rookery, and while I was carefully making a sketch of her graceful outlines, a rival 

 bull, adjacent, reached out from his station and seized her with his month at the nape of the neck, just as a cat lifts 

 a kitten. At the game instant, almost simultaneously, the old male that was rightfully entitled to her charms, turned, 

 and canght her in his teeth, by the skin of her posterior dorsal region. There she was, lifted and suspended in mid air, 

 between the jaws of her furious rivals, until, in obedience to their powerful struggles, the hide of her back gave 

 way, and, as a ragged flap of the raw skin more than six inches broad and a foot in length was torn up and from her 

 spine, she passed, with a rush, into the possession of the bull who had covetously seized her. She uttered no cry 

 during this barbarous treatment, nor did she, when settled again, tutu to her torn and bleeding wound to notice it in 

 any way whatsoever that I could observe. 



When severe inflammation takes place, they seek the water, disappearing promptly from your scrutiny. 



