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Show THE FUR SEAL. From Mr. Elliott's Report. The hair seal, distributed all over the ?? salt waters of the earth, has been persistently mistaken by naturalists for the fur seal and sea lion, which, though it belongs to the great group of pinnapeds, it no more resembles than "a raccoon does a grizzly bear." No animal is physically superior to the fur seal, and few, if any have a higher order of instinct approaching intelligence. Between the 1st and 5th of May, a few fine, ambitious seals, of six or seven years old, will swim leisurely toward the island, will carry the head high, and deliberately survey the beach. Some will play idly among the waters, ready to land as soon as, and no sooner than, it is necessary. Others will land at once. A seal, when he lands, steps (the fore-flippers alternate in walking) two steps, then arches his spine, bringing the hind-flippers under him, and then steps again, the body never touching the ground and the head held erect and graceful three feet above the ground, with his long mustache falling down his shoulders like a plume. He will select a lot near the water-line of six or eight feet, and settle down upon it. He will be six or seven feet in length, and weigh at least 400 pounds; older ones will weigh 600 pounds. Compared to the immensely thick neck and shoulders, which are two-thirds of his whole weight, his head seems disproportionately small, but it is almost all brain. He has large, bluish-hazel eyes, that burn with revengeful or passionate light, which changes to tenderness and good nature. He has the muzzle and jaws of a full-blooded Newfoundland dog, but its lips press together like a man's. The upper lip has a yellowish white and gray long mustache. The fore flippers are a pain of bluish-black hands, eight or nine inches broad at the junction with the body, the metacarpal joint running out fifteen or eighteen inches to an ovate point. On the upper side of these flippers the hair of the body straggles down fainter and finer to the point where the metacarpal bones unite with the phalanges (where our knuckles are); here the hair ends. On the under side the skin is bare from the extremity to the body connection. The hind-flipper is like a human foot, drawn out to the length of twenty to twenty-two inches, the instep flattened down. The bones are like pasteboard. With his fore-flippers he does all his climbing on land-the hind are gathered up as useless trappings; they are also his propelling power in the water, the hind serving only as rudders. He has two coverings, one a close soft fur, the other a short crisp glistening hair. The down and feathers on a duck lie relatively as the fur and hair on the seal. After he dries off, his prevailing color is a dark dull brown, with a sprinkling of lighter brown and black. The old have grizzly gray coats; on the shoulders of all the adults is the wig, either gray or rufous ochre, ore a very pronounced pepper and salt. The body colors are most intense on the back of the head, neck, and spine. His ears are from an inch to an inch and a half in length, and can be rolled up on themselves, and his hearing is surpassingly acute. The sea lion has but one call or note; the walrus one. The hair seal's voice is inaudible, but the fur seal has four distinct calls. He has a hoarse, resonant roar, loud and long; he has an entirely different low, gurgling growl; he has a chuckling, sibilant, piping whistle; and a choo-choo-choo sound, like steam puffs from a locomotive. Until the 1st to the 10th of June, but few more come, and all is quiet. About that time the foggy, humid summer sets in, and the male seals swarm by thousands and locate in positions advantageous to receive the females, that come a month to six weeks later. The locating and maintaining a position becomes a serious business to those that come last, and it is all the time to those that take the water-line. They fight day and night without cessation, frequently to the death of one or both combatants. It seems a law that each shall have a lot, of six or eight feet, provided he is strong enough to keep it till the females come, and some wear themselves out fighting for it. Some show wonderful strength. Says Mr. Elliot: "I saw one who came early and took a position directly at the water-line. He fought forty or fifty desperate battles. Covered with scars and frightfully gashed, with one eye out, he held his own, and lorded it over fifteen or twenty females, huddled on his first location around him." Only full-grown males fight. They approach with averted heads, make feints and passes; their heads dart out and back quick as a flash; they seize with the teeth and clinch the jaws, and only by sheer strength can they be shaken off. Their hoarse roaring and shrill whistle never cease, while their bodies writhe and swell with exertion and rage; furious lights gleam in their eyes, their hair flies in the air, and their blood streams down. If the defender proves the weaker, he leaves, and the conqueror takes his place with a peculiar chuckle, and sits down and fans himself with one of his hind flippers. The necessity of guarding his position keeps the male seal in the one little spot until the breeding season is over; he can not eat or drink, but absorbs his own fat, and in August crawls back to the sea a bony shadow, abject and spiritless, for he has not drawn one torpid breath during his whole fast. But the next season he comes back fat, vigorous and ambitious for a fight. Between the 12th and the 14th of June the females begin to come up from the sea, and the males have a period of desperate and universal fighting, the fiercest fights they ever have. The male sees the female on the water and coaxes and urges her up the rocks and jealously watches her; but when he sees another and is wooing her, seal No. 2 will steal his wife and carry her off, as a cat does a kitten, and while Nos. 1 and 1 are fighting, No. 3 will steal her, and sometimes she has several changes before she is left in peace. The males on the water-line have fifteen to twenty females, while further back they do not have more than five to twelve. Nothing will make the male desert his wives, and after they are settled down they cease fighting, but never sleep more than five minutes at a time. He will not attack a man, but he will not run from one. The females are from four to four and a half feet in length, and much more shapely than the males. Their lithe, elastic forms never alter, for they do not fast, but go out to the sea every day or two. When they come up from the water [missing] dirty-gray color, [missing] but on drying they [missing] with a rich steel and [missing] luster on the back of the [missing] neck and along the spine [missing] blends into an almost snow white over the chest and abdomen. The head and eyes are exceedingly beautiful, the expression attractive, gentle and intelligent. The large lustrous blue-black, eyes are soft and humid, while the small and well-formed head is poised most gracefully on her neck. She is the very picture of benignity and satisfaction, when, perched on a rock, with her head thrown back on her gently-swelling shoulders, she fans herself quietly. The females are very fond of being together, and never fight, but are exceedingly amiable, and rarely utter a cry of pain, oven when the males, in fighting over them, fairly tear the skin on their backs; and they sleep a great deal. They do not come up to meet their uncouth lords; but in a few hours, or a day, after coming each gives birth to one jet black seal, with a tiny white patch back of each forearm, and weighing three or four pounds. If the little one keeps on the limits, the male will be jealous, vigilant, fearless protector; but if he wander off the limits, though in full sight, the male would not make any movement if Mr. Elliott took him up and carried him off. In a day or two the mother takes a sea-bath and gets food, and, coming back, will give a long, hollow call or bla-at like a sheep. The young ones answer with a bla-at. Each mother can tell her own young's voice, though ten thousand are bla-ating at a time, and will strike out to it, and permit no one else to feed it. In the early part of August this clock-like work is all broken up. Most of the males go off to the water. Younger ones, and those who have been kept off, come to land. By the middle of August the females are off in the water, only coming ashore to look after the young, who do not swim before they are a month or six weeks old, and then are very awkward, but they soon revel in the water. By the middle of October they have changed to a uniform dense light-gray over-hair, which entirely covers the under fur, so that until after the second year the sex is not recognizable. The eyes then are clear, dark, liquid, beautiful and intelligent, to which no other animal's can be compared. The seals leave the island in independent squads, each looking out for itself; but they all turn toward the south, and disappear toward the horizon, and spread out over the North Pacific as far south as 47 deg.-48 deg. They feed solely on fish, and when young are eaten by the killer whale and shark, and are the shyest and wariest of fish, though when on the island they are very tame, and will gambol around a boat in the water. The theoretical value of those seals is not less than $10,000,000 or $12,000,000. In 1874, in ten rookeries on St. Paul were 8,000,000 seals, on St. George 163,420-3,198,420. Of non-breeders there are probably 1,600,000. These only have a commercial value, for no others are killed, and only 100,000 yearly of these. Their value is $1,800,000-$2,000,000, which pays the United States 15 per cent. annually. Before they are old enough and strong enough to fight for possession, the seals keep aloof from the breeding-grounds, and are called bachelors. These are the only ones killed. They are docile as sheep, and the fur is best when they are but three or four years old. Three or four men can drive as many thousand about half a mile an hour. They often rest and fan themselves. If heated, the fur comes out. They are knocked on the head, then drawn out, stabbed and skinned. The skinning is a very severe labor, but averages four minutes. Some will skin one in a minute and a half. They are then salted and put in a bin. This used to take nearly three months, and the last skins would be nearly worthless; but the natives, by improved health and skill and ambition, can now salt 100,000 in forty days, so they are all perfect. They are nine-tenths of them sent to London, because labor is cheaper there than here. The fur is concealed under a coat of still over-hair, dull, gray-brown and grizzled. The skin must be warmed just enough to loosen the hair, so it can be combed out, and not enough to loosen the fur-a very nice operation. Many prime skins have lost value by being badly cured.-Mrs. Lucy E. Sanford, in N. Y. Observer. |