THE EAEED SEALS: HABITS AND DISTEIBUTIOK 37 



19. THE SEA LIONS AND FUR SEALS IN GENERAL. 



General characters. — The largest species of the Otaries (genera Otaria and Uumetopias) 

 are Hair Seals, while the smallest (genera Callorhimis and Arctocephalus) are Fur Seals; but the 

 species of Zalopkus, although Hair Seals, are intermediate in size between the other Hair Seals and 

 the Fur Seals. All the Hair Seals have coarse, hard, stilf hair, varying in length with age and 

 season, and are wholly without soft underfur. All the Fur Seals have an abundant soft, silky 

 underfur, giving to the skins of the females and younger males great value as articles of commerce. 

 The longer, coarser overhair varies in length and abundance with season and age. All the Hair 

 Seals are yellowish or reddish brown (in Zalophus sometimes brownish-black), generally darkest 

 when young, and becoming lighter with age, and also in the same individuals toward the molting 

 season. There is also considerable range of individual variation in representatives of the same 

 species, so that co, oration alone fails to afford satisfactory diagnostic characters. All the Fur Seals 

 are black when young, but they become lighter with age, through an abundant admixture of grayish 

 hairs which vary from yellowish-gray to wbitish-graj\ The southern Fur Seals are generally, when 

 adult, much grayer than the northern. There is hence a wide range of color variation with age in 

 the same species, as there is also among conspecific individuals of the same sex and age. While 

 some have the breast and sides pale yellowish -gray, others have these parts strongly rufous, the 

 general tint also showing to some extent these differences. 



There is also a wonderful disparity in size between the sexes, the weight of the adult males 

 being generally three to Ave times that of the adult females of the same species. There are also 

 very great differences in the form of the skull, especially in respect to the development of crests 

 and protuberances for muscular attachment, these being only slightly developed in females and 

 enormously so in the males. With such remarkable variations in color and cranial characters, 

 dependent upon age and sex, it is not a matter of surprise that many nominal species have arisen 

 through a misappreciation of the real significance of these differences. 



Habits. — The Eared Seals show also a remarkable resemblance in their gregarious and polyg- 

 amous habits. All the species, wherever occurring, like the Walruses and Sea Elephants, resort 

 in great numbers to particular breeding stations, which, in sealers' parlance, have acquired the 

 strangely inappropriate name of "rookeries." The older males arrive first at the breeding grounds, 

 where they immediately select their stations and await the arrival of the females. They keep up a 

 perpetual warfare for their favorite sites, and afterward in defense of their harems. The number 

 of females acquired by the successful males varies from a dozen to fifteen or more, which they guard 

 with the utmost jealousy — might being with them the law of right. The strongest males are nat- 

 urally the most successful in gathering about them large harems. The males, during the breeding 

 season, remain wholly on land, and they will suffer death rather than leave their chosen spot. They 

 thus sustain, for a period of several weeks, an uninterrupted iast. They arrive at the breeding 

 stations fat and vigorous, and leave them weak and emaciated, having been nourished through 

 their long period of fasting wholly by the fat of their own bodies. The females remain uninter- 

 ruptedly on land for a much shorter period, but for a considerable time after their arrival do not 

 leave the harems. The detailed account given a century ago by Steller, and recently confirmed by 

 Br\ant and Elliott, ot the habits of the northern Fur and Hair Seals during the breeding season, 

 is well known to apply, in greater or less detail, to nearly all the species of the family, and 

 presumably to all. As the observations by Messrs. Elliott and Bryant are presented later in this 

 work at length, it is unnecessary to give further details in the present connection. 



Geographical distribution. — The most striking fact in respect to the distribution of the 

 Otariidce is their entire absence from the waters of the North Atlantic. 



