THE FCTE SEAL: EFFECTS OF HEAT. 83 



Indeed, so similar is the sound, that I noticed a number of sheep which the Alaska Commercial 

 Company had brought up from San Francisco to Saint George Island, during the summer of 1873, 

 were constantly attracted to the rookeries, and were running in among the "HolluschicMe"; so 

 much so that they neglected the good pasturage on the uplands beyond, and a small boy had to be 

 regularly employed to herd them where they could feed to advantage. These transported Ovidce, 

 thougii they could not possibly And anything in their eyes suggestive of companionship among the 

 Seals, had their ears so charmed by the sheep-like accents of the female pinnipeds, as to pers^^ade 

 them against their senses of vision and smell. 



The sound which arises from these great breeding-grounds of the Fur Seal, where thousands 

 upon tens of thousands of angry, vigilant bulls are roaring, chuckling, and ]dping, and multitudes 

 of seal-mothers are calling in hollow, blaating tones to their young, that in turn respond inces- 

 santly, 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 "S"ovostashnah," 

 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 Northeast 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 churning boom of the waves of Niagara. Night and day, throughout the 

 season, this din upon the rookeries is steady and constant. 



Effects of heat on the Seals. — The Seals seem to suffer great inconvenience and positive 

 misery from a comparatively low degree of heat. I have been often surprised to observe that, 

 when the temperature was 46° and 48° Fahr. on land during the summer, thej' would show every- 

 where signs of distress, whenever they made any exertion in moving or fighting, evidenced by 

 panting and the elevation of their hind-flippers, which they used incessantly as so many fans. 

 With the thermometer again higher, as it is at rare intervals, standing at 55° and 60°, they then 

 seem to suffer even when at rest; and at such times the eye is struck by the kaleidoscopic appear- 

 ance of a rookery — in any of these rookeries where the Seals are spread out in every imaginable 

 position their lithesome bodies can assume, all industriously fan themselves; they use sometimes 

 the fore-flippers as ventilators, as it were, by holding them aloft motionless, at the same time 

 fanning briskly with the hinder ones, according as they sit or lie. This wavy motion of fanning' 

 or flapping gives a hazy indistinctness to the whole scene, which is dif&cult to express in language;, 

 but one of the most prominent characteristics of the Fur Seal, and perhaps the most unique feature,. 

 is this very fanning manner in which they use their flippers, when seen on the breeding-grounds- 

 at this season. They also, when idle as it were, off-shore at sea, lie on their sides in the water 

 with only a partial exposure of the body, the head submerged, and then hoist up a fore- or hind- 

 flipper clear out of the water, at the same time scratching themselves or enjoying a momei.tary 

 nap; but in this position there is no fanning. I say "scratching," because the Seal, in common 



'Dr. Otto Cramer. The suddenness witli whicli fog and wind shutdown and sweep over the sea here, even when 

 the day opens most auspiciously for a short boat-voyage, has so alarmed the natives in times past, that a visit is now 

 never made by them from island to island, unless on one of the company's vessels. Several bidarrahs have never been 

 heard from, which, in earlier times, attempted to sail, with picked crews of the natives, from one island to the other. 



