SEA LION DOZING ON HIS BACK.SEA LION FAST ASLEEP.SEA LION CLIMBING.SEA LION IN WATCHFUL ATTITUDE.SEA LION LICKING HIS LEG.SEA LION SCRATCHING WITH HIND FOOT.
SEA LION DOZING ON HIS BACK.
SEA LION DOZING ON HIS BACK.
SEA LION FAST ASLEEP.
SEA LION FAST ASLEEP.
SEA LION CLIMBING.
SEA LION CLIMBING.
SEA LION IN WATCHFUL ATTITUDE.
SEA LION IN WATCHFUL ATTITUDE.
SEA LION LICKING HIS LEG.
SEA LION LICKING HIS LEG.
SEA LION SCRATCHING WITH HIND FOOT.
SEA LION SCRATCHING WITH HIND FOOT.
The success accompanying the above animal’s exhibition led to the Zoological Society’s sending Lecomte to the Falklands to procure more. Although he obtained a number, most met mishaps and died before reaching London. His account of their habits and nature corroborates the earlier observers. According to him, families range from six to twenty, a dozen being the average, while a herd would be composed of several families. Located in the islands and isthmuses, an old male guards as sentinel, and signals, by a growl, approaching danger. Between sleeping and procuring food theypass their time, often lying huddled in a drowsy condition. At high tides, night and day, they take to fishing near the entrance of fresh-water rivulets into the sea, at such times remaining for a whole tide dabbling after fish and crustaceans. In capturing their prey, they swallow it above or below the water. The animal at the Zoological Gardens, as a rule, came to the surface to swallow, but the other Seals more often did so underneath. This Otaria, Lecomte affirms, never drinks water, that which he first brought to England not receiving fluid for a year, but he had seen the Common Seals suck water like a Horse. He certified to the fact of their pebble-swallowing propensities. The general habits of this animal are but a repetition of what has been said of other species, and need not detain us. The greater number migrate towards the south from July till November, between these months remaining in the neighbourhood of the Falklands. The young are of a deep chocolate colour, when a year old becoming paler, the females being nearly grey, the old male of a rich brown hue, the flippers in all being darker. There is a sparse under-wool in the young, which sensibly diminishes with age.
Captain Cook says he met with immense males, twelve or fourteen feet in length, and eight or ten in circumference. Such big customers now no longer exist, though the truth of what the circumnavigator asserts would seem to be substantiated by the fact of skulls of enormous size being found hither and thither, weather-worn, on the beach. These exhibit the remarkable peculiarity of prodigious crests, so that they have been compared with the characteristic change shown in the Gorilla, to which allusion has already been made (Vol. I., p. 17).
THEFALKLANDISLANDFURSEAL.[215]—The head-quarters for the capture of this valuable species of commercial Fur Seal are the Falkland Isles, and the South Shetlands within the Antarctic Circle, but it is also found on the coast of South America, namely, around Patagonia, Cape Horn, and the islands bordering Chili. It doubtless also betakes itself to several of the small southern oceanic islets, such as the New Orkneys, South Georgia, and indeed very possibly migrates to the ice-bound areas surrounding the Southern Pole. Captain Abbott, who was formerly resident on the Falklands, says that Seal skins and Seal oil are two of the principal products of these islands. The boats employed in collecting these articles “are usually from twenty to thirty tons in measurement, and are manned by four or five men. They are sent out laden with provisions, casks for the oil, and salt for preserving the Seal skins; they are frequently out for months together, cruising about the islands, and seldom return without a full cargo.” The favourite locality of this valuable Fur Seal at the Falklands is the Volunteer Rocks at the northern entrance to Berkeley Sound, these rocks, owing to the heavy swell, being inaccessible except in fine weather and after many days’ calm. The truth is the hunters have driven these animals nearly away from their old quarters, the few that still remain being excessively shy. The best, almost classical account of the habits of this species, is that of Captain Weddell, in his “Voyage towards the South Pole,” between 1818–1821. When he visited the South Shetlands, so little did they apprehend danger from man, that they lay quietly by while their neighbours were being killed and skinned. But, as he says, they soon acquired habits for counteracting danger, by placing themselves on rocks whence they precipitated themselves into the water. Their agility is very great, outstripping men running fast in pursuit. The absurd story of their throwing stones at their pursuers with their tails, Weddell accounts for by their awkward trailing gait, and in an attempt to scamper, scattering rocky fragments hither and thither behind them. He mentions their exceeding disproportion of size, the males, as in other species, being the more bulky, the latter being six to seven feet long, the females seldom more than four feet, and often less. He computed the females at about twenty to one male. They assemble gregariously on the coasts at different periods and in distinct classes. Like the Northern Fur Seals, the males separate and go ashore in November, where they await the arrival of the females. By December these latter begin to land, and the seraglio and system of battle resemble what has been described in the Fur Seal of the Pribyloff Islands. The period of gestation is about a twelvemonth, probably less, and the young are born in December. By the middle of February these latter, said to be taught to swim by their mothers, take to the water. At first they are black, a few weeks later become grey, and afterwards, as they frequent the sea, moult and acquire their peculiar furry coats. What the mariners call Dog Seals, that is, those a couple of years old, land in crowds as February terminates and March goes on. But by the end of April they once more make for the water, and scarcely land again until June wanes,then they occupy irregularly the land and water for several weeks. Towards the close of August the herds of young Seals of both sexes again return on shore for a few weeks, and retire ultimately to the water, to be succeeded by the old and more powerful males, as above stated. Excepting the difference of season, their habits much resemble those ofO. ursinus. As in the other Otaries, colour varies with age. The darker tint of the young, as they grow older, tones down to a rich brown, with the under parts yellow, the hairs being tipped with greyish-white. The hairs are by no means so strong as in the Hair Seals, while the under-fur is thick, soft, and of a ruddy brown hue. Their skins are among the most valuable in the market.
FALKLAND ISLAND FUR SEAL.
FALKLAND ISLAND FUR SEAL.
THESOUTHAFRICAN,ORCAPEFURSEAL.[216]—We are still, as Mr. J. W. Clark remarked a few years ago, in a “lamentable state of ignorance about the Sea Lions of the Cape of Good Hope—indeed, we cannot say with certainty whether there are one or two species—though, from that centre of trade, cargoes of 60,000 or 70,000 skins come annually to the London market.” In 1875, the Zoological Society obtained, presented through Sir Henry Barkly, a living specimen of Sea Lion, taken at the Cape, which was smaller in size than the Patagonian Sea Lion (O. jubata) exhibited along with it. This individual had a whitish-red coat, grizzled with blackish hairs, the under side of the body, as likewise the short fur, being of a richer reddish-brown. When it came out of the water, its then sleek skin closely resembled that of the latter well-known example of a Hair Seal. The process of dressing the skin we have already described, doubtless, would bring out the fact of its possessing the rich fur coat not obvious in the living animal. This would appear to agree with the barely adult stage of the animal. Flat skins, apparently of this same species from the Cape, figure largely in the trade sales, and those similar to the above in age are technically called “middlings.” The smaller sorts of the sale catalogue, “pups,” or “black pups,” have smooth, soft, polished, black hairs more ruddy beneath. The large skins with a slight mane, the “large wigs” of the dealers, have whitish fur intermixed with black hairs and short reddish under-fur. The habits of the live animal in confinement quite resemble those of the other Sea Lions living alongside.
THENEWZEALANDFURSEAL.[217]—The investigations of Mr. J. W. Clark (“Proceedings of the Zoological Society,” 1875) tend to the conclusion that the Fur Seals originally met with by Captain Cook on the shores of New Zealand, and also by him and Flinders in Bass’s Straitand the coasts of Tasmania, belonged to one and the same species. J. R Forster, the naturalist who accompanied Cook, made some spirited sketches (now in the British Museum) of the living forms, which agree in most respects with animals obtained in 1871–5 by Dr. Hector in New Zealand. In 1773, during his second voyage of circumnavigation, Captain Cook cast anchor in Dusky Bay, New Zealand, and records that he saw great numbers of Seals on the small rocks and islets in this neighbourhood. Forster made careful notes thereon, besides his drawings. He says they are Seals with ears, hands free, feet webbed on the under surface, naked between the fingers, hardly nailed. Gregarious in habits, they are timid, and fling themselves off the rocks into the sea at the approach of man; but the most powerful resist when attacked, bite the weapons used against them, and even venture to assail the boats. They swim with such rapidity under water that a boat rowed by six strong men can scarcely keep up with them. Tenacious of life to a degree, a fractured skull did not despatch them. The weight of the full-grown is 220 lbs., of cubs scarcely 12 lbs.; the former are six or seven feet long, the latter barely two and a half. The hair is soft, black, with reddish-grey tips and a delicate reddish under-fur.
Mr. Clark and Dr. Hector agree as to the general colour. The young are black when wet, when dry, lighter below; individual hairs pale yellow at base with light yellow tips, and a dense under-fur of the same tint. The older animals have hairs tipped with white. Round the mouth and ears are pale yellow. These Seals are fast disappearing or retiring to the Southern Antarctic Ocean. They possibly may be found in some of the smaller islands south of New Zealand, such as Auckland and Campbell Islands. On this point, however, information is required, but it has been shown at least that Hooker’s Sea Bear frequents these latter, and, as already observed, is known in a sub-fossil state in New Zealand.
LEFT FORE (A) AND HIND (B) FLIPPER OF NEW ZEALAND FUR SEAL. (After J. W. Clark.)
LEFT FORE (A) AND HIND (B) FLIPPER OF NEW ZEALAND FUR SEAL. (After J. W. Clark.)
At the beginning of this century the sealing-trade of New South Wales was at its height, and vessels, manned by crews of from twenty-five to thirty men, pursued the craft. Mr. Scott, on the authority of Mr. Morris, an old Sydney sealer by profession, remarks that “to so great an extent was this indiscriminate killing carried, that in two years (1814–15) no less than 400,000 skins were obtained from Penantipod, or Antipodes Island, alone, and necessarily collected in so hasty a manner that very many of them were but imperfectly cured. The shipPegasustook home 100,000 of these in bulk, and on her arrival in London, the skins, having heated during the voyage, had to be dug out of the hold, and were sold as manure—a sad and reckless waste of life.”
THEASH-COLOUREDOTARY.[218]—It is to be regretted that a memoir on the Eared Seals from the pen of the admirable Péron was lost to science by his lamented early demise. The Frenchsavant, when sojourning on the South Australian coast at Kangaroo Island, found a new species of the genus, which he namedO. cinerea, this attaining a length of nine to ten feet. He stated that the hair of this animal is very short, hard, and coarse, but its leather is thick and strong, and the oil prepared from its fat is as good as it is abundant and he recommends pursuit of it and the other Seals with fur of good quality.
Most likely it is the same animal to which Flinders alludes when he says, speaking of Kangaroo Island, which abounded with Kangaroos and Seals:“They seem to dwell mainly together. It not unfrequently happened that the report of a gun fired at a Kangaroo near the beach brought out two or three bellowing Seals from under the bushes considerably farther from the water-side. The Seal, indeed, seems to be much the more discerning animal of the two; for its actions bespoke a knowledge of our not being Kangaroos, whereas the Kangaroo not unfrequently appeared to consider us to be Seals.”
It evidently is to Péron’s animal, or one otherwise not to be distinguished from it, that the naturalists of theAstrolabe, fully twenty year after, referred as thePhoque cendréefrequenting Port Western, Australia. This appears to be a distinct animal from others hitherto described, though so little is positively known that I shall merely draw attention to its colour. It is grey on the back, lighter on the muzzle, and rusty-grey on the lower parts of the body. It has sparse reddish under-fur, and Clark states of the somewhat dilapidated skin preserved in the Paris Museum that it has a length of between seven and eight feet.