CHAPTER XL 



THE ALASKAN SEA-LION. 



A Pelagic Moiiarcli. — Marked Difference between the Sea-lion and the Fur- 

 seal. — The Imposing Presence and Sonorous Voice of the "Sea-king." — 

 Terrible Combats between old Sea-lion Bulls. — Cowardly in the Presence 

 of Man, however. — Sea-lions Sporting in the Fury of Ocean Surf. — It has 

 no Fur on its Huge Hide. — Valuable only to the Natives, who Cover their 

 ."Bidarrah" with its Skin. — Its Sweet Flesh and Inodorous Fat. — Not 

 such Extensive Travellers as the Fur-seals. —The Difficulty of Capturing 

 Sea-lions. — How the Natives Corral them. — The Sea-lion " Pen ' at North- 

 east Point. — The Drive of Sea-lions. — Curious Behavior of the Animals. 

 — Arrival of the Drove at the Village. — A Thirteen -mile Jaunt with the 

 Clumsy Drove. — Shooting the old Males. — The Bloody "Death-whirl." — 

 The Extensive Economic Use made of the Carcass by the Natives.— 

 Chinese Opium Pipes Picked with Sea-lion Mustache bristles. 



The sea-lion is also a characteristic pinniped of the Pribylov Islands, 

 but ranks much below the fur-seal in perfected physical organiza- 

 tion and intelligence. It can, as well as its more sagacious and 

 valuable relative, the Callorhinus, be seen, perhaps, to better advau- 

 tao-e on these islands than elsewhere in the whole world that I know 

 of. The marked difference between a sea-lion and the fur-seal up 

 here is striking, the former being twice the size of its cousin. 



The size and strength of a northern sea-lion, Eumetopias stel- 

 leri, its perfect adaptation to its physical surroundings, unite with 

 a singular climatic elasticity of organization. It seems to be equally 

 well satisfied with the ice-floes of the Kamchatka Sea to the north- 

 ward, or with the polished boulders and the hot sands of the coast 

 of California. It is an animal as it appears upon its accustomed 

 breeding: grounds at Northeast Point, where I first saw it, that com- 

 manded my involuntary admiration by its imposing presence and 

 sonorous voice, as it reared itself before me, with head, neck, and 

 chest upon its powerful forearms, over six feet in height, while its 

 heavy bass voice drowned the booming of the surf that thundered 

 on the rocks beneath its flanks. 



