EAEBD-SBALS. 513 



the customary style. The people had hardly set to -work at the 

 task, when one of their number, a small, elderly, though tough, 

 able-bodied Aleut, while thrusting his lance into the ' life ' of a 

 large bull, was suddenly seen to fall on his back, directly under 

 the huge brute's head ; instantly the powerful jaws of the 

 ' see-vitchie ' (native name for sea-lion) closed upon the waistband, 

 apparently, of the native, and lifting the yelling man aloft, as a 

 cat would a kitten, the sea-lion shook and threw him high into 

 the air, away over the heads of his associates, who rushed up to 

 the rescue, and quickly destroyed the animal by a dozen furious 

 spear thrusts; yet death did not -loosen its clenched jaws, in 

 which were the tattered fragments of Ivan's clothing." 



The moustache bristles procured from these seals, which are 

 tough and elastic, have, strange to say, a commercial value. They 

 are sent to San Francisco, where they are sold to the Chinese, 

 for about a cent apiece, who use them as peckers for cleaning 

 their opium pipes, and also for certain purposes in connection 

 with their joss-house ceremonies. 



The Patagonian sea-lion [Otaria jubata) is the species best known 

 to the frequenters of the Zoological Gardens, for the popular and 

 sportive animal that can generally be seen plunging about in the 

 spacious pond set apart for the purpose, is a female of this variety. 



These sea-lions are found distributed all round the South 

 American continent, from Peru to the River Plate. Magellan, 

 whose name was given to the straits that divide Tierra del Fuego 

 from Patagonia, speaks in the history of his eventful voyage 

 (1579) of the animal which the Spaniards called the sea-wolf. 

 It was probably identical with the animal which attracted the 

 attention of Captain Cook and his naturahst, Forster, for the 

 superficial resemblance to a lion seems to have struck them at once, 

 and they gave it the name of jubata, from the Latin word juba, a 

 mane. In one of Forster's drawings, preserved in the British 

 Museum, he represents it as possessing such an appendage, but 

 the long hair covering the neck and shoulders to be seen in the 

 adult male is hardly worthy of a designation which invites com- 

 parison with the ornamental locks of a lion. 



This species derives some exceptional interest from the fact that 



L 1 



