88 NATURAL HISTORY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



his ground, making little charges on me of ten or fifteen feet in a succession of gallops or lunges, ' 

 spitting furiously, and then comically retreating to the old position, with an indescribable leer and 

 swagger, back of which he would not go, fully resolved to hold his own or die in the atteii!])t. 



This courage is all the more noteworthy from the fact that, in regard to man, it is invariably 

 of a defensive character. The Seal is always on the defensive ; he never retreats, and he will not 

 attack. If he makes you return when you attack him, he never follows you much farther than 

 the boundary of his station, and then no aggravatiou will compel him to take the offensive, so Jar 

 as I have been able to observe. I was very much impressed by this trait. 



Behavior of the female Seals on the eookeeies. — The cows, during the whole season, 

 do great credit to their amiable expression by their manner and behavior on the rookery; they 

 never fight or quarrel one with another, and never or seldom utter a cry of pain or rage when they 

 are roughly handled by the bulls, which frequently get a cow between them and actually tear the 

 skin from her back with their teeth, cutting deep gashes in it as they snatch her from mout^i to 

 month. If sand does not get into these wounds it is surprising how rapidly tbey heal; and, from 

 the fact that I never could see scars on them anywhere except the fresh ones of this year, they 

 must heal effectually and exhibit no trace the next season. 



The cows, like the bulls, vary much in weight, but the extraordinary disparity in tbe size of 

 the sexes, adult, is exceedingly striking. Two females taken from the rookery nearest to Saint 

 Paul Village, right under the bluffs, and almost beneath the eaves of the natives' houses, called 

 "Nail Speel," after they had brought forth their young, were weighed by myself, and their 

 respective returus on the scales were fifty-six and one hundred pounds each, the former being 

 about three or four years old, and the latter over six — perhaps ten; both were fat, or rather in 

 good condition — as good as they ever are. Thus the female is just about one-sixth the size of 

 the male.' Among the Sea Lions the i)roportion is just one-half the bulk of the male,^ while the 

 Hair Seals, as I have before stated, are not distinguishable in this respect, as far as I could observe, 

 but my notice was limited to a few specimens only. 



Attitudes of Fur Seals on land. — It s quite beyond my power, indeed entirely out of 

 the question, to give a fair idea of the thousand and one positions in which the Seals compose 

 themselves and rest when on land. They may be said to assume every possible attitude which a 

 flexible body can be put into, no matter how characteristic or seemingly forced or constrained. 

 Their joints seem to be double-hinged ; in fact, all ball and socket union of the bones. One favorite 

 position, especially with the females, is to perch upon a point or edge-top of some rock, and throw 

 their heads back upon their shoulders, with the nose held directly up and aloft; and then closing 

 their ejes, to take short naps without changing their attitude, now and then softly lifting one or 

 the other of their long, slender hind-flippers, which they slowly wave with their peculiar fanning 

 motion to which I have alluded heretofore. Another attitude, and one of the most common, is to 

 curl themselves up just as a dog does on a hearth rug, bringing the tail and nose close together. 

 They also stretch out, laying the head close to the body, and sleep an hour or two without rising, 

 holding one of the hind flippers up all the time, now and then gently moving it, the eyes being 

 tightly closed. 



I ought, perhaps, to define here the anomalous tail of the Fur Seal. It is just about as 

 important as the caudal appendage to a bear, even less significant: it is the very emphasis of 

 abbreviation. In the old males it is positively only ibur or five inches in length, while among the 

 females only two and a half to three inches, wholly inconspicuous, and not even recognized by the 

 casual observer. 



'Adult male and female — Callorliinus ursinua. 

 'Adult male and female — Kumetopiaa Stelleri. 



