360 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



length, being longest over the nape of the neck ; straight, and 

 somewhat coarse, varying in color as the season comes and goes. 

 For instance, when the Uumetopiaa makes its first appearance in 

 the spring and dries out after landing, it has then a light-brownish 

 rufous tint, with darker shades back and under the fore flipj)ers 

 and on the abdomen. By the expiration of a month or six weeks, 

 about June 15th, generally, this coat will then be weathered into a 

 glossy rufous, or ochre j^ellow ; this tinting remains until shed along 

 by the middle of August, or a little earlier. After a new coat has 

 fairly grown, and just before an animal leaves the island rookery 

 in November, it is a light sepia or Vandyke brown, with deeper 

 shades, almost black, upon its abdomen. The cows after shedding 

 never color up so darkly as the bulls ; but when they come back 

 to Ihe land next year they return identically the same in tinting ; 

 so that the eye, in glancing over a sea-lion rookery during June 

 and Jvily, cannot discern any dissimilarity in color, at all note- 

 worthy, existing between the coats of the bulls and the cows ; also, 

 the young males and yearlings appear in that same golden-brown 

 and ochre, with here and there an animal which is noted as being 

 spotted somewhat like a leopard — a 3'ellow rufous ground predom- 

 inating, with patches of dark-brown, blotched and mottled, irreg- 

 ularly interspersed over the anterior regions down to those poster- 

 ior. I have never seen any of the old bulls or cows thus mottled, 

 and this is likely due to some irregularity of shedding in the 

 younger animals ; for I have not noticed it early in the season, and 

 it seems to fairly fade away so as not to be discerned on the same 

 animal at the close of its summer solstice. Many of the old bulls 

 have a grizzled or "salt and pepper" look during the shedding 

 period, which is from August 10 th up to November 10th or 20 th. 

 The pups, when born, are a rich dark-chestnut brown. This coat 

 they shed in October, and take one much lighter in its stead, still 

 darker, however, than their parents. 



The time of arrival at, stay on, and departure from the islands, 

 is about the same as that which I have recorded as characteristic of 

 the fur-seal ; but, if a winter is an open, mild one, some of the 

 sea-lions will frequently be seen about the shores during the whole 



that is a mere inference of mine, because so little is known of those ice-bound 

 coasts, and Wilkes, who gives the only record made of the subject, saw no 

 other animal there save that one. 



