XV.] 
LIFE AT A ROOKERY.’’ 
283 
of thousands, they pass several months without the least food. 
The males (oxen) come first to the place, most of them in the 
month of May or at the beginning of June. Combats of 
excessive violence, often with a deadly issue for one of the 
parties, now arise regarding the space of about a hundred square 
feet, which each seal-ox considers necessary for its home. The 
strongest and most successful in fight retain the best places 
near the shore; the weaker have to crawl farther up on land, 
where the expectation of getting a sufficient number of spouses 
is not particularly great. The fighting goes on with many 
feigned attacks and parades. At first the contest concerns the 
proprietorship of the soil. The attacked therefore never follows 
its opponent beyond the area it has once taken up, but haughtily 
lays itself down, when the enemy has retired, in order in the 
arms of sleep to collect forces for a new combat. The animal 
in such a case grunts with satisfaction, throws itself on its back, 
scratches itself with its fore-feet, looks after its toilet, or cools 
itself by slowly fanning with one of its hind-feet, but it is always 
on the alert and ready for a new fight until it is tired out and 
meets its match, and is driven by it farther up from the beach. 
One of the most peculiar traits of these animals is that 
during their stay on land they unceasingly use their hind-paws 
as fans, and sometimes also as parasols. Such fans may on a 
warm day be in motion at the same time by the hundred 
thousand at a “ rookery.” 
In the middle of June the females come up from the sea. At 
the water’s edge they are received in a very accommodating way by 
some strong oxen that have succeeded in securing for themselves 
places next the shore, and now are bent by fair means or foul 
on annexing the fair for their harem. But scarcely is the 
female that has come up out of the water established with 
seal-ox No. 1, when this ox rushes towards a new beauty 
on the surface of the water. Seal-ox No. 2 now stretches 
out his neck and without ceremony lays hold of No. I’s spouse, 
