FUR SEALS. 



159 



treated with indifFerence by all the males. By the 

 middle of August, the young are all born, and the 

 females are again pregnant. The old males, having 

 occupied their stations constantly for four months, 

 without food, now resign their charge to the younger 

 males, and go some distance from shore to feed. 



"The fact of their remaining without food seems 

 so contrary to Nature, that it appears to me proper to 

 state some of the evidences of it. Having been assured 

 by the natives that such was the fact, I deemed it of 

 sufficient importance to test it by all the means avail- 

 able. Accordingly I took special pains to examine daily 

 a large extent of the rookery, and note carefully the 

 results of my observations. The rocks on the rookery 

 are worn smooth and washed clean by the spring -tides, 

 and any discharge of excrement could not fail to be 

 detected. I found, in a few instances, where newly - 

 arrived seals had made a single discharge of red -colored 

 excrement, but nothing was seen afterward to show that 

 such discharges were continued, nor any evidence that 

 the animals had partaken of food. I also examined the 

 stomachs of several young ones, killed liy the natives 

 for eating, and always without finding any traces of 

 food in them. The same was true of the few nursing 

 females killed for dissection. 



"About the 20th of July, the great body of the 

 previous year's pups arrive, and occup}' the slopes with 

 the younger class of males, and they continue to be 

 mixed together during the remainder of the season. 

 The two -years -old females, which pair with the young 

 males in the water near the island, also now associate 

 with the other females. The pups are five weeks old 

 when the old females go off to feed ; they go with the 

 mothers to the upland, but keep by themselves. The 

 pups born on the lower edge of the rookery, where the 

 surf breaks over them occasionally, learn to swim early, 

 but the larger portion of them do not take to the 



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