THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 929 
covers a number of cells ordinarily empty, becomes 
enlarged and lengthened by the blood that the ani- 
mal has the power of forcing into the cells. This 
projection is now a foot in length; but it appears 
to be nothing more than a mere appendage, some- 
what resembling, in more respects than one, the 
fleshy wattle on the head of the turkey, which can 
be similarly inflated. In the spring—that is, in these 
latitudes, the months of August and September— 
the Elephant Seals betake themselves to the rocky 
shores in large herds: at this time they are exceed- 
ingly fat, and a single male will sometimes yield a 
butt of oil, They remain on shore until the middle 
of summer, when the young, which have been born 
in the mean time, are fit to take the water and pro- 
vide for themselves. As the old ones have taken no 
food during the whole of this period, they are become 
very lean and weak, but soon recruit their powers. 
Though furnished with large and powerful tusks, 
and endowed with sufficient strength to use them, 
the Sea-Elephant is a most mild and inoffensive 
creature, suffering the seamen not only to walk 
among them uninjured, but even to bathe in the 
midst of the herd when swimming, with perfect im- 
punity. In self-defence, however, or in defence of 
their young, their resistance becomes formidable. 
One of Anson’s men, having killed a young one, had 
the cruelty and rashness to skin it in the presence of 
its mother: but she, coming behind him, got the 
sailor’s head into her mouth, and so scored and 
notched his skull with her sharp teeth, that he died 
in a day or two afterwards. 
U 
