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Show THE TRAINElSEALS. CAPTAIN WESTON TE! ABOUT HIS THREE PERFO, 'rRS- How He and a Famous C i j Captured Hobby, Biiai;L.' -LlC. ft Some of Their Trickg!ational BanJr V Salt Water Fish. ,- Utah Of all the different i make up the animal tt0BEKTS, jR JL? perhaps the strangesf V chosen for training, Jrr'nTn '8J the three seals under 4 U v) ,1 ' guidance show that e'-(. e.-" wonderful things. Tj now .ruling .rul-ing every day are t j . ,de9t els in captivity. Seals are mely delicate, and they rarely live vy from their native sea and rock01 more than a year, and yet these sfs Bobby, Bibby and Tommy, havf' brP1 performing regularly reg-ularly for six years, peir. longevity is undoubtedly due to iw"-fact that they receive great carei The exact spot of the birthplace of these seals is not knijwn, but when they were youngsters thej were found on one of the islands off Ooxshaven in Germ any. The German government does all it can . to protect its fiaue "7"aad as seals are a constant menace ILflsh - the government govern-ment pays a reward of 6 marks for the capture of each seal. There is a famous seal fisherman in Germany named Worthman, and when Captain Weston, who had been on many sealing and whaling expeditions in the North sea, determined that he would give up the life of a sailor and. become a landlubber it occurred to him that the training of seals would be novel and profitable. He went to Worthman, and together they , captured the three sleek little fellows. There are many islands outside of Loxs-haven, Loxs-haven, and ono of the smallest was chosen. In describing the capture Captain Cap-tain Weston said: We stretched the net on one side of one of the smaller islr s 5d then went to the others and shofohj pistols and made a noise, driving manyseals into the water wa-ter and against the. net.. W had to work Wause the seals dived down and Ixcame entangled in the net, and a seal v 111 drown if kept five minutes nnde'WC vp. When we finally pulled them rijwei found that we had about 20 seals, luwt when they found themselves altogether they became enraged en-raged and fought among themselves, biting, scratching and tearing, even killing one another, until there were only three left, and these three are the same three I have toda . One ha8 only a fa:yit idea of the amount of patience whicn it requires to teach a fish, for such a seal really is. It looks easy to see one of mv seals ulav the banjo or a harp, bat it took me three months of bard work . every day to teach them to do this even in an imperfect im-perfect manner, and the only reason that I can give is that they have been at it long enough to learn. I have never before known a seal to live in captivity over one year, and yet 1 have had mine many times that. I am often surprised at their intelligence. Especially is this true of Bobby, the clown. 1 believe that that fish understands under-stands humor, because lie does things at times which actually rcake me laugh, to say nothing about the audience. He is the best Eeal I ever had, the best I ever will have, and I think that he has an affection for me, anil that he knows almost everything that I say to him. Yea, the care of seals is a great one; 1 keep them in a tank, and above the water is a shelf for themto lie on when they feel so inclined. This water is changed three times a day, and 20 pounds of salt are put iato the water at each change, for a sea! cannot live in fresh water, you know They are as plump and fat today as hey were lying on their native rocks in the North sea, and they know a great deal more about the world than they otherwise would have known. I may surprise some people, but it is nevertheless a fact, that these three scab eat 500 pounds of fish a week. They wll onJy eat sea-fish, sea-fish, such as herring or flounder, and I attribute their long lifeto the fact that I am very careful with ieir food. The fish are washed and ceaned and the heads cut off just as caefully and just as cleanly as though g)ing on a hotel table. The seal does JJt chew a fish, but swallows it whol .,nd it would surprise you to 6ee how , 'great mass of fish will disappear whe jhree seals get at it. All the accompli gaents of theso seals are not shown, "g.sy have been taueht water tricks. .bn throw a 10 o cent piece into a tank of water, and, small as the piece is and flat as it lies on the bottom, at a word of command any one of my seals will dive for it and get it. This I do not show in public, because the tank is an unwieldy thing to keep about. Have they ever bitten me? Yes, sev- Jral times, and the seal's bite is a nasty The last time was when I placed k "nbourino in front of Bibby. warning he grabbed me by the i'' certainly thought he would 0z iece out of it before I could "vOVt go, and I was obliged to attrrnd ry severely before 1 could get him-io let loose. My seals to me are great pets, and I think as much of them as I would of a child, for their great, big, intelligent eyes look up into mine with an expression which tells me if they only knew how they would certainly cer-tainly talk to me. New York Tribune. |