10 



The males, when aged, will reach to 8 feet in length, but animals 

 of 6 feet, or slightly under, are most frequently met with. The 

 females are very much smaller, scarcely ever exceeding 4 feet. 



It will be seen, when I treat of the Southern Pur-Seal, that this 

 description of the size, the colour of the hair, and under-fur of the 

 Northern animal is applicable to both, and, in an account of the habits 

 of the present species, those of the A.ntarctic Fur-Seal will be found to 

 be equally truthfully depicted. 



"This creature," writes SteUer, " has four feet on which it can walk 

 and stand, somewhat like land animals ;" " when on shore, with the hind 

 feet folded under, it plants the paws in front and sits as dogs often do, 

 so that the toes perform the office of heels." " These animals are 

 found in amazing numbers in the Islands of the North-west Coast of 

 America, and so crowd the shore that they oblige the traveller to quit 

 it, and scale the neighbouring rocks." They are as regularly migratory as 

 birds of passage." " They live in families, every male being sur- 

 rounded by from eight to fifty females, which he guards with the 

 jealousy of an Eastern monarch. Each family keeps separate from 

 the others, notwithstanding they lie in thousands along the shore, — 

 every family, including the young, amounting to about 100 or 120. 

 Even at sea the, Jistint'tness of the families may be perceived." "When 

 fighting they niter hideous growls, — when amusing themselves they 

 low like a cow, — aud after victory chirp like a cricket, — and upon 

 receiving a wound complain like a whelp." 



" Some twenty or thirty years ago there was a most wastefiil 

 destruction of the Fur-Seal, when yoimg and old, male and female, were 

 indiscriminately knocked on the head. This impro^^dence, as every 

 one might have expected, proved detrimental in two ways. The race 

 was almost extirpated ; and the market was glutted to such a degree, 

 at the rate, for some time, of 200,000 skins a year, that the prices did 

 not even pay the expenses of carriage. The Eussians, however, have 

 now adopted' nearly the same plan which the Hudson's Bay Company 

 pursues in recruiting any of its exhausted districts, killing only a 

 limited nvimber of such males as have attained their full growth, a plan 

 peculiarly applicable to the Eur-Seal, inasmuch as its habits render the 

 system of husbanding the stock as easy and certain as destroying it. 

 In the month of May, with something of the regularity of the 

 almanac, the Fur-Seals make their appearance at the Island of St. 

 Paul, one of the Aleutian Q-roup. Each old male brings a herd of 

 females under his prt/teetion, varying in number according to his size 

 and strength ; the weaker brethren are obliged to content themselves 

 with half-a-dozen wives, while some of the sturdier and fiercer fellows 

 preside over harems that are 200 strong. From the date of their 

 arrival in May, to that of their departure in October, the whole of 

 them are principally ashore on the beach. The females go down to the 

 sea once or twice a day, — while the male, morning, noon, and night, 

 watches his charge with the utmost jealousy, postponing even the 

 pleasures of eating and drinking, and sleepiug, to the duty of keeping 



