NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 
visiting the shallow waters near by, for fear lest 
during their absence other males may interfere 
with their family arrangements. When they at 
last venture to leave their family for short periods 
in order to obtain food, they are weak and emaciated. 
The diet of these seals consists entirely of fish— 
mostly small ones. They are large animals, and 
consequently consume great quantities of the finny 
tribe, which they seem to be able to capture with 
comparative ease. 
The male Sea Lions arrive at maturity in about 
three years. These males, with increasing years, 
grow larger and more powerful, and develop a 
mane of long coarse hairs all round the neck, which 
is a good protection against the teeth of rivals. 
The female seals have no trace of a mane. 
The canine teeth of the old male seals are large 
and strong. These are efficient weapons, backed 
up by the powerful muscles of the jaws, acting 
in conjunction with the great masses of strong 
muscular fibre on the neck, chest, and shoulders. 
The teeth of the cubs are well developed and 
sharp at an early age. The cubs are beautiful 
little creatures with big black luminous eyes. They 
have a loud and plaintive cry like that of a kid in 
distress, but somewhat shriller. I kept several 
Sea Lion cubs alive at the Port Elizabeth Museum 
for a couple of weeks, and taught them to take milk 
from a baby’s sucking bottle. For the first three 
or four days their bleating cries were deafening. 
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