The Zoologist — November, 1870. 2359 



were bleaching in the wind ; the flesh of others had been lorn off by 

 gulls and cormorants : the dirt and stench below, and the huge 

 weird rocks towering above produced an impression anything but 

 agreeable. 



" We anchored pretty close under the lee of the island, directly 

 opposite a little white shingly cove, with patches of long coarse reedy 

 grass in the background. This is a favourite resort of the seals, and 

 nowhere can their manners and customs be more favourably studied. 

 The old gray bulls rear the fore part of their bodies and slowly sway 

 themselves from side to side, meanwhile throwing up their great heads 

 and bellowing continuously. The cows and their calves are congre- 

 gated together in a coterie by themselves ; and reposing on the out- 

 lying rocks, in attitudes anything but graceful, is an entire seraglio of 

 young females. The noise made by the seals during the night is 

 something fearful. Oue might imagine it to be something like the 

 croaking of Brobdignag bull-frogs varied at intervals by deep growls 

 and sharp cries, loud snortings, dissonant brayings, and other sounds of 

 a more unearthly kind. Three individuals fell victims to the prowess 

 of our sportsmen, and were towed on board in triumph." — P. 226. 



The account of Ainos is replete with interest; the exact corre- 

 spondence of the statements now published and those made by 

 La Perouse, two hundred years ago, is very striking: the litter of 

 blind puppies, the barking mother and hiding woman, detected, hunted 

 to earth, as a fox-hunter would term her hovel, are all reproduced, 

 and will hereafter serve me for a text when winding up my " Death of 

 Species." These ancient people at any rate are not progressive; they 

 seem slowly and placidly folding their garments around them, and, 

 like Bewick's worn-out horse, to be "waiting for death": their only 

 occupation is the capture of salmon, and these noble fish, too good 

 to eat, they sell to the Japanese, " reserving for themselves the stench 

 of putrefaction, which adheres to their clothes, their houses, and to the 

 very grass which surrounds their villages." So wrote La Perouse, and 

 Mr. Adams confirms it to the very letter. These people have nothing 

 in common with their neighbours, the Japanese: it was thought 

 probable they might speak a language somewhat resembling Japanese, 

 and so belong to the same linguistic family: this has been entirely 

 disproved, and M. de Rosney observes, in his ' Introduction to the 

 Study of Japanese,' that "the idea is completely inadmissible." 



