40 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



they pack the soil nuder foot so hard and tightly in many places, that it holds water in the surface depressions, just 

 like so many rock-basins. Out of and into these, puddles the pups and the females flounder and patter incessantly, 

 until evaporation slowly abates the nuisance. This is for the time only, inasmuch as the next day, perhaps, brings 

 more rain, and the dirty pools are replenished. 



The pups sometimes get so thoroughly plastered in these muddy, slimy puddles, that the hair falls ofl' in 

 patches, giving them, at first sight, the appearance of being troubled with scrofula or some other plague: from my 

 iuvestigations, directed to this poiut, I became satisfied that tliey were not permanently injured, (hough evidently 

 very much annoyed. With reference to this suggestion as to sickness or distemper among the seals, I gave the 

 subject direct and continued attention, and in no one of the rookeries could I discover a single seal, no mutter how 

 old or young, which appeared to be suffering in the least from any physical disorder, other than that which they 

 themselves had inflicted, one upon the other, by fightiug. The third season, passing directly under my observation, 

 failed to reward my search with any manifestation of disease among the seals which congregate in such mighty 

 numbers on the rookeries of St. Paul and St. George. The remarkable freedom from all such complaints enjoyed 

 by these animals is noteworthy, and the most trenchant and penetrating cross-cpiestioning of the natives, also, 

 failed to give me any history or evidence of an epidemic in the past. 



Hospitals. — The observer will, however, notice every summer, gathered in melancholy squads of a dozen to 

 one hundred or so, scattered along the coast where the healthy seals never go, those sick and disabled bulls which 

 have, in the earlier part of the season, been either internally injured or dreadfully scarred by the teeth of their 

 opponents in fighting. Sand is blown by the winds into the fresh wounds and causes an inflammation and a 

 sloughing, which very often finishes the life of the victim. The Siiilors term these invalid gatherings "hospitals", a 

 l^hrase which, like most of their homely expressions, is quite approjiriate. 



Young seals learning to swim. — Early in August, usually by the Sth or 10th, I noticed one of the 

 remarkable movements of the season. 1 refer to the pups first essa^y in swimming. Is it not odd— paradoxical— 

 that the young seal, from the moment of his birth until he is a month or six weeks old, is utterly unable to swim? 

 If he is seized by the nape of the neck and pitched out a rod into the water from shore, his buUetlike head will 

 drop instantly below the surface, and his attenuated posterior extremities flap impotently on it ; suffocation is the 

 question of only a few minutes, the stupid little creature not knowing how to raise his immersed head aud gain 

 the air again. After they have attained the age I indicate, their instinct drives them down to the margin of the 

 surf, where the alternate ebbing and flowuig of its wash covers and uncovers the rocky or sandy beaches. They 

 first smell and then touch the moist pools, aud flounder in the upper wash of the surf, which leaves them as sndden'y 

 high and dry as it immersed them at first. After this beginning they make slow and clumsy progress in learning 

 the knack of swimming. For a week or two, when overhead in depth, they continue to flonuder about in the most 

 awkward manuer, thrashing the water as little dogs do, with their fore feet, making no attempt whatever to use the 

 hinder ones. Look at that pup now, launched out for the first time beyond his depth ; see how he struggles— his 

 mouth wide open, and his eyes fairly popping. He turns instantly to the beach, ere he has fairly struck out fiom the 

 poiut whence he launched in, and, as the receding swell which at first carried him oft his feet and out, now returning, 

 leaves him high and dry, for a few minutes he seems so weary that he weakly crawls up, oxxt beyond its swift 

 returning wash, and coils himself up immediately to take a recuperative nap. He sleeps a few minutes, perhaps 

 half an hour, then awakes as bright as a dollar, apparently rested, and at his swimming lesson he goes again. By 

 repeated and persistent attempts, the young seal gradually becomes familiar with the water and acquainted with 

 liis own power over that element, which is to be his real home and his whole sup])ort. Once boldly swimming, the 

 pup fairly revels in his new happiness. He and his brethren have now begun to haul and swarm along the whole 

 length of St. Panl coast, from Northeast point down and around to Zapadnie, lining the alternating sand-beaches 

 and rocky shingle with their plump, black forms. How they do delight in it! They play with a zest, and chatter 

 like our own children in the kindergartens—swimming in endless evolutions, twisting, turning, or diving— and wlieu 

 exhausted, drawing their plump, round bodies up again on the beach. Shaking themselves dry as young dogs 

 Mould do, they now either go to sleep on the spot, or have a lazy terrestrial frolic among themselves. 



How an erroneous impression ever got into the mind of any man in this matter of the pup's learning to swim, 

 I confess that I am wholly unable to imagine. I have not seen any "driving" of the young ])nps into the water 

 by the old ones, in order to teach them this process, as certain authors have positively affirmed.* There is not the 

 slightest supervision by the old mother or father of the pup, from the first monu'ut of his birth, in this respect, 

 until he leaves for the North Pacific, full-fledged with amphibious power. At the close of the breeding .season, every 

 year, the pups are restlessly aud constantly shifting back and forth over the rookery ground of their birth, in large 

 squads, sometimes numbering thousands upon thousands. In the course of this change of position they all sooner 

 or later come in contact with the sea; they then blunder into the water ibr the first time, in a nio.st awkward, 

 ungainly manuer, ami get out as quick as they cuu ; but so far from showing any fear or dislike of this, their most 

 natural elemeut, as soon as they rest from their exertion they are immediately ready for a new trial, and keep at it, 

 provided the sea is not too stormy or rough. During all this period of self-tuition they seem thoroughly to eujoy 



the exercise, in spite of their repeated and inevitable discomfitures at the begin ning. ^^^ 



* Alleu. Bislory of Koi-th Amencan rUiiiipeils, p. 387. 



