502 WILD ANIMALS. 



young, that in turn respond incessantly, is simply defiance to 

 verbal description. It is, at a slight distance, softened into a deep 

 booming, as of a cataract, and I have heard it, with a light, fair 

 wind to the leeward, as far as six miles out from land on the sea, 

 and even in the thunder of the surf and the roar of heavy gales it 

 will rise up and over to your ear for quite a considerable distance 

 away. It is the monitor which the sea-captains anxiously strain 

 their ears for when they run their dead-reckoning up, and are 

 laying-to for the fog to rise, in order that they may get their 

 bearings of the land ; once heard, they hold on to the sound, and 

 feel their way in to anchor. The seal roar at ' Novastoshnah ' 

 during the summer of 1872 saved the life of the surgeon and six 

 natives belonging to the island, who had pushed out on an egging 

 trip from North-East Point to "Walrus Island. I have sometimes 

 thought, as I have listened through the night to this volume of 

 extraordinary sound, which never ceases with the rising or the 

 setting of the sun throughout the entire season of breeding, that it 

 was fully equal to the cheering boom of the waves of Niagara. 

 Night and day, throughout the season, this din upon the rookeries 

 is steady and constant." 



Although the bulls have been quarrelling all the time and con- 

 tinue to do so all through the season, yet when the cow-seals 

 begin to arrive, they signalize the event by a period of universal, 

 spasmodic, desperate fighting among themselves, the contests 

 being far more bloody and vindictive, and result in a heavier per- 

 centage of mutilation and death than at other times. 



The cows are from 4 feet to 4^ feet in length from head to tail, 

 and besides having much smaller bodies than the bulls, are more 

 lithe and elastic, and much more shapely in their proportions. 

 They exhibit a strong contrast to their ferocious and saturnine 

 lords by wearing an air of exceeding peace and dove-like amiability. 

 " The head and eye of the female are exceedingly beautiful ; the 

 expression is really attractive, gentle, and intelligent ; the large, 

 lustrous, blue-black eyes are humid and soft with the tenderest 

 expression, while the small, well-formed head is poised as grace- 

 fully on her neck as can be well imagined ; she is the very picture 

 of benignity and satisfaction when she is perched up on some 



