94 NATURAL HISTOEY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



(till -Hedged with amphibious power. At the close of the breeding-season, every year, the pups are 

 restlessly and constantly shifting back and forth over the rookery ground of their birth, in large 

 squads, sometimes numbering thousands upon thousands. In the course of this change of position 

 they all sooner or later come in contact with the sea ; they then blunder into the water for the first 

 time, in a most awkward, ungainly manner, and get out as quick as they can ; but so far from 

 showing any fear or dislike of this, their most natural element, as soon as they rest from their 

 exertion they are immediately ready for a new trial, and keep at it, provided the sea is not too 

 stormy or rough. During all this period of self-tuition they seem thoroughly to enjoy the exercise, 

 in spite of their repeated and inevitable discomfitures at the beginning. 



Podding of the pups. — The " podding" of these young pups in the rear of the great rookeries 

 of Saint Paul, is one of the most striking and interesting phases of this remarkable exhibition of 

 highly organized life. When they first bunch together they are all black, for they have not begun 

 to shed the natal coat: they shine with an unctuous, greasy reflection, and grouped in small 

 armies or great regiments on the sand-dune tracts at Northeast Point, they present a most extraor- 

 dinary and fascinating sight. Although the appearance of the "Holluschickie" at English Bay 

 fairly overwhelms the observer with the impression of its countless multitudes, yet I am free to 

 declare, that at no one point in this evolution of the seal-life, during the reproductive season, have 

 I been so deeply stricken by the sense of overwhelming enumeration, as I have, when, standing on 

 the summit of Gross Hill, I looked down to the southward and westward over a reach of six miles 

 of alternate grass and sand-dune stretches, mirrored upon which were hundreds of thousands of 

 these little black puj)s, spread in sleep and sport within this restricted field of vision. They 

 appeared as countless as the grains of the sand upon which they rested. 



Second change of coat.— ^By the 15th of September, all the pups born during the year 

 have become familiar with the water; they have all learned to swim, and are now nearly all down 

 by the water's edge, skirting in large masses the rocks and beaches previously this year unoccupied 

 by Seals of any class. Now they are about five or six times their original weight, or, in other 

 words, they are thirty to forty pounds avoirdupois, as plump and fat as butter-balls, and they 

 begin to take on their second coat, shedding their black pup-hair completely. This second coat 

 does not vary in color, at this age, between the sexes. They effect this transformation in dress 

 very slowly, and cannot, as a rule, be said to have ceased their molting until the middle or 20th of 

 October. 



This second coat or sea going jacket, of the pup, is a uniform, dense, light-gray over-hair, with 

 an under fur which is slightly grayish in some, but in most cases is a soft, light-brown hue. The 

 over-hair is fine, close, and elastic, from two-thirds of an inch to an inch in length, while the fur is 

 not quite half an inch long. Thus the coarser hair shingles over and conceals the soft under wool 

 completely, giving the color by which, after the second year, the sex of the animal is recognized. 

 The pronounced difl'erence between the sexes is not effected, however, by color alone until the 

 third year of the animal. This over-hair of the young pup's new jacket on the back, neck, and 

 head, is a dark chinchilla-gray, blending into a stone-white, just tinged with a grayish tint on the 

 abdomen and chest. The upper lip, upon which the whiskers or moustaches take root, is covered 

 with hair of a lighter gray than that of the body. This moustache consists of fliteen or twenty 

 longer or shorter bristles, from half an inch to three inches in length, some brownish, horn-colored, 

 and others whitish-gray and translucent, on each side and back and below the nostrils, leaving the 

 muzzle quite prominent and hairless. The nasal openings and their surroundings are, as I have 

 before said when speaking of this feature, similar to those of a dog. 



Byes op the pup-seals.— The most attractive feature about the fur-seal pup, and that 



