FUR FACTS 317 



to swim, never going out, however, beyond his depth. After a while 

 he becomes bolder and then grows more and more expert until he 

 finally becomes an expert swimmer. The young seal therefore up 

 to the time he learns to swim is a land animal, and it requires four 

 months of nursing by its mother on land before it becomes able to 

 shift for itself and is abandoned by its parent. It is said that the 

 young seal can swim at the rate of eighteen or twenty miles an hour 

 for many consecutive hours without pause or rest. 



The bull seal when at its greatest weight will weigh up to five 

 hundred pounds and will measure from six to seven feet in length. 

 The female, however, only weighs from seventy five to one hundred 

 and twenty five pounds, and is about four and one half feet in length. 

 The young bachelor seals from one to five years old, weigh from fifty 

 to two hundred pounds, and are from four to five feet in length. 

 It has long been a mystery as to where the seals go when they leave 

 the islands. They swim out into the open sea and some authorities 

 claim that they speed south off the coast of British Columbia as far 

 down as the northern line of California, but wherever they go, one 

 thing is certain that they do not touch land until they again return 

 to their breeding grounds. One of the remarkable facts in connection 

 with seal life is the long fast of the bull seal on the breeding grounds. 

 As stated before from the time they establish themselves, which is 

 from the first to the fifth of May, they do not leave their posts for 

 a single instant night or day, until some time between the first and 

 the tenth of August. The bulls, therefore, for a period of three 

 months or more, absolutely abstain entirely from any kind of food 

 or drink, and when they do return to the water, they are, to borrow 

 a slang expression, "all in'*, and have barely enough strength to 

 crawl into the water and get ready to start in all over again. 



The females on the contrary do not fast but feed at frequent inter- 

 vals and during the end of the season on the island are usually as 

 sleek and fat as when they first arrived. 



It is said that the bull seal is expert in the management of his 

 harem. Whether he has a harem of five members or fifty, he is 

 master of the situation. His will is law; not that it is always tamely 

 accepted as such, but the result is the same. If a female becomes 

 restless and moves about, a warning growl usually quiets her. If 

 the movement is persisted in and an attempt to escape evident, the 

 bull is up at once with a show of fierceness. He may simply strike 

 the cow down, or he may even seize her in his mouth and deliberately 

 throw her, or carry her back, to the herd. If the female thinks she 



