AMrniKiAisr millions. 281 



I have always found their sleep to be of this nervous (lescri2:»tion. 

 The respiration is short and rapid, but Mith no breathing (unless 

 the ear is brought very close). The quivering, heaving of the 

 flanks only indicates the action of the lungs. I have frequently 

 thought that I had succeeded in finding a snoring seal, especially 

 among the pups ; but a close examination always gave some abnor- 

 mal reason for it — generally a slight distemper ; never anything 

 more severe, however, than some trifle by which the nostrils were 

 stopped to a gi-eater or less degree. 



The cows on the rookeries sleep a great deal, but the bulls 

 have the veriest cat-naps that can be imagined. I never could time 

 the slumber of any old male on the breeding grounds which lasted, 

 without interruption, longer than five minutes, day or night. While 

 away from these places, however, I have known them to lie sleeping 

 in the manner I have described, broken by such fitful, nervous, 

 dreamy starts, yet without opening the eyes, for an hour or so at a 

 time. 



With an exception of the pups, the fur-seal seems to have very 

 little rest, awake or sleeping. Perpetual motion is well-nigh in- 

 carnate with its being. I naturally enough, when beginning my 

 investigation of these seal-rookeries, expected to find the animals 

 subdued at night, or early morning, on those breeding grounds ; but 

 a few consecutive nocturnal watches satisfied me that the family or- 

 ganization and noise was as active at one time as at another, 

 throughout the whole twenty-four hours. If, however, the day 

 preceding had chanced to be abnormally Avarm, I never failed then 

 to find the rookeries much more noisy and active during the night 

 than they were by daylight. The seals, as a rule, come and go to 

 and from the sea, fight, roar, and vocalize as much during mid- 

 night moments as they do at noonday times. An aged native en- 

 deavored to satisfy me that the " seecatchie '' could see much better 

 by twilight and night than by daylight. I am not prepared to 

 prove to the contrary, but I think that the fact of his not being able 

 to see so well himself at that hour of darkness was a true cause 

 of most of his belief in the improved noctui*nal vision of the seals.* 



* This old Aleut, Philip Vollkov, passed to liis final rest — " iiu konchiel- 

 sah " — in the winter of 1878-79. He was one of the real characters of 

 St. Paul. He was esteemed by the whites on account of his relative intelli- 

 gence, and beloved by the natives, who called him their " wise man,'' and 

 who exulted in his piety. Pliilip, like the other people there of his kiml, 



