1891.] . Polygamy Among the Pinnipedia. III 
protracted fasts is one of the results of the ultra polygamy prac- 
ticed by these animals. 
A marked intensification of desire seems to be one of the 
immediate concomitants of polygamy among animals. A writer 
in a recent number of the NaTurAList™ says, in speaking of 
monogamous birds adopting a polygamous habit: “We may 
infer, therefore, that sexual power and high sexual characters go 
hand in hand, and that in proportion to the advance toward 
organic perfection virility increases.” 
The virility of the sea lion is probably more excessively 
developed than that of any other mammal, The sexual organi- 
zation is of the most highly specialized type, and differs in some 
important particulars (e.g., external scrotum) from most other 
Pinnipedia." 
This excessive virility might lead to the habit of abstaining 
from food in order to secure and then guard the females. This 
abstinence in its incipiency would not be of very great duration, but 
the period might be lengthened by almost imperceptible incre- 
ments throughout hundreds of generations, until the surprising 
results noted above would be reached. The animals live on 
their own blubber during their long fast, and it is reasonable to 
suppose that the male progenitors of the sea lions which were 
the strongest and lustiest and possessed the most blubber would 
be able to outstay their rivals, and hence obtain possession of a 
-greater number of females and beget a greater number of off- 
spring than those having less strength and blubber. Thus a 
process of selection would be instituted whereby animals would 
eventually be produced possessed of sufficient blubber and 
endurance to survive the effects of even such phenomenal fasts as 
are endured by the fur seal of the present day. 
In the preceding pages the writer has endeavored to account 
for the following peculiarities met with among the Pinnipedia : 
Ist, The relation between great sexual disparity in size and 
10 AMERICAN NATURALIST, November, 1890, p. 1030. 
1 For further interesting particulars, see Monograph of North American Pinnepeds, 
- Pp. 382-405. 
Am. Nat.—February.—2. 
