48 THE SEALS A^D WALRUSES. 



crustaceans, a)ld sea-fowls; always with the addition of a few pebbles or smooth stones, some of 

 which are a pound in weight.' Their principal feathery food, however, is the penguin in the South- 

 ern Hemisphere, and the gulls in the Northern ; while the manner in which they decoy and catch 

 the GaHota of the Mexican and Cahfornia coasts displays no little degree of cunning. When in 

 pursuit the animal dives deeply under water and swims some distance from where it disappeared; 

 then, rising cautiously, it exposes the tip of its nose above the surface, at the same time giving it 

 a rotary motion, like that of a water bug at play. The unwary bird on the wing, seeing the object 

 near by, alights to catch it, while the Sea Lion'at the same moment settles beneath the waves, and 

 at one bound, with extended jaws, seizes its screaming prey, and instantly devours it.^ 



"A few years ago great numbers of Sea Lions were taken along the coast of Upper and Lower 

 California, and thousands of barrels of oil obtained. The number of Seals slain exclusively for 

 their oil would appear fabulous, when we realize the fact that it requires on an average, throughout 

 the season, the blubber of three or four Sea Lions to produce a barrel of oil. Their thick, coarse- 

 grained skins were not considered worth preparing for market, in a country -where manual labor 

 was so highly valued. At the present time, however, they are valued for glue-stock, and the 

 seal hunters now realize more comparative profit from the hides than from the oil. But while 

 the civilized sealers, plying their vocation along the seaboard of California and Mexico, destroy 

 the Lobo marino, for the product of its oil, skin, testes, and whiskers, the simple Aleutians of 

 the Alaska region derive from these animals many of their indispensable articles of domestic 

 use '" 



The whiskers are carefully saved and sent to China, where they are used for cleaning opium 

 pipes; the livers are also used in the Chinese pharmacopoeia. 



Mr. Elliott, in referring to the differences between the Californian and Alaskan Sea Lions, calls 

 attention to the dissimilarity of their voices. The Northern Sea Lion, he says, "never barks or 



that they cousiirae more fish than are caught in the bay for food, and if they continue to increase in the future as 

 in the past, it will be but a few years before the waters of the bay will be destitute of fish. Formerly these animals 

 seldom cam i within the Golden Gate, but now it is a very common thing for passengers on the Oakland boats to see 

 their mischievous-looking heads rise from the water with a large fish in the mouth — they give it a shake, bite out a 

 piece, drop it, and then, diving again, catch it, and rising to the surface, take another nibble until it is consumed. It 

 is certain that something should be done to diminish their numbers. If the legislature was to offer a royalty of from 

 75 cents to $1 per skin, it is thought by many interested in our fish supply that it would be an economical act. As it 

 is now, the Sea Lions are protected by law — no one being allowed to molest or kill one within a mile of the Cliff House. 

 An eftort has been made on several occasions to repeal this law, but at the first intimation of anything in that direction, 

 the lobby in Sacramento has been re-enforced by delegations from a certain stratum of society which history tells us 

 has had more or less influence with legislation since the days of Marc Antony. The consequence is, the law is still 

 upon the statute-books, and the Sea Lions continue to increase, while the fish supply proportionately decreases. — San 

 J'^rancisco Ciill, November 13. 



' "The enormous quantity of food which would be required to maintain the herd of many thousands, which, in 

 ioimer years, annually assembled at the small island of Santa Barbara, would seem incredible, if they daily obtained 

 the allowance given to a male and female Sea Lion on exhibition at Woodward's Gardens, San Francisco, California, 

 where the keeper informed me that he fed them regularly, every day, forty pounds of fresh fish " 



[That the destruction of fish by the Sea Lions on the coast of California is very great is indicated by the following 

 item, which recently went the rounds of the newspapers: "In a recent meeting at San Francisco of the Senate 

 Committee on Fisheries, the State Fish Commissioners, and a committee representing the fishermen of the coast, the 

 qnestiou as to I ho destructive performances of the Sea Lions in the harbor was actively discussed. One of the fishermen's 

 representatives said that it was estimated that there were 25,000 Sea Lions within a radius of a few miles, consuming 

 from ten to forty pounds each of fish per day; the Sea Lions were protected while the fishermen were harassed by the 

 game laws. Another witness declared that salmon captured in the Sacramento River often bore the marks of injury 

 from Sea Lions, having barely escaped with life; but it was supposed that the salmon less frequently fell victims to 

 The amphibian than did other fishes that cannot swim as fast." — Country, January 26, 1878.] 



'-[This account appeared originally in Captain Soammon's account of the "Islands oft' the West Coast of Lower 

 California," in J. Ross Browne's "Resources of the Pacific Slope," second part, p. 130 (1869), and has been quoted by 

 Mr. Gurney in the "Zoologist" for 1871, p. 2762.] 



^Scammon: Marine Mammalia, pp. 130-135. 



