CHAPTER IV 

 ORDER OF SEALS AND SEA-LIONS 



PINNIPEDIA 



SOME students may feel that it is useless for land dwellers 

 to try to become acquainted, at long range, with sea ani- 

 mals. Toward many sea animals this feeling is justified; but 

 it should not be entertained toward the bold and hardy 

 fin-footed children of the surf. The seals and sea-lions of our 

 shores are well worth knowing. 



From the warm and luxurious shore of southern California 

 to Oregon's storm-beaten Tillamook Rock, and on up to the 

 inhospitable, rock-bound edge of western Alaska, you will 

 find at intervals, where Nature has done some of her grandest 

 work in shore-building, colonies of bold and hardy sea-lions. 

 On the Pribilof Islands lives the most valuable of all the fur- 

 bearing animals of the world, the fur-seal, which has con- 

 tributed millions of dollars to our national treasury, more than 

 repaying the whole price of Alaska. 



On the low shores and adjacent ice-floes of the north 

 Atlantic live the seal herds that annually yield an immense 

 store of valuable oil, and furnish employment for thousands 

 of Newfoundland sailors and sealers. 



The reader may rest assured that, even though his home 

 be in the centre of the Great Plains, the North American seals 



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