The seals then, while they are in all main points constructed like land animals, have gained many advantages, not by having new parts, but by the old ones becoming so modified as to make them admirably fitted for a watery life; and when we add that they have large eyes well adapted for seeing under water, keen ears with little or no outer ear, which would be useless, but a very acute hearing apparatus within, and nostrils which will close firmly and keep the air in and the water out when they dive, we must acknowledge that they make good use of all parts of their body. Indeed, their breathing apparatus is the most curious of all, for they can remain under water sometimes for twenty minutes, and meanwhile the circulation of their blood is probably controlled by large reservoirs in the veins, which prevent it going back to the heart and lungs till it can be purified by fresh breath.

Now, if all these changes from a land to a water-frequenting animal have been made gradually, we shall expect to find some forms less altered than others, and so it is. The Walrus, which is not a seal, but a creature with a thick hide having no fur and only a few scattered hairs upon it, and long tusks in his mouth, is much more of a land-animal than the seals. He passes a great part of his life sauntering along on the low shores of the Arctic seas, digging up mussels, cockles, and clams with his long canine teeth or tusks; and in accordance with this we find that his hind legs are much freer than even those of the sea-lions, for the skin binding them to his body is broader and his hips are stronger, so that, as he throws his front flippers forwards, he can also throw out his feet and walk on all fours in a strange straddling manner. He is remarkably fierce and strong, and Captain Scoresby caught one once in the act of killing and eating a large narwhal, so that they are evidently not afraid of attacking even large animals. The walrus is even said to stand at bay on shore and fight his great destroyer the polar bear, throwing up his head so as to strike forcibly with his sharp tusks, but in this battle he is generally defeated. His tusks alone would suggest that he lives a good deal on land exposed to dangers, for his more aquatic relations the seals are without tusks, and though their teeth are sharp enough, and they fight among themselves, yet their way of escaping the great tyrant of the ice-fields is to slip into the water.

Beyond his tusks, and the fact that by sleeping many weeks on the ice in autumn he reminds us of the bears, the walrus’s life is not very interesting. They live in large shoals in the Arctic sea, climbing the rocks and ice with the help of their tusks, which they drive into the crevices and so haul themselves up. During the colder times just before our own, they came down into much lower latitudes than now, and we find their bones as far south as England in Europe and Virginia in America, and even in our day one has been seen off the west coast of Skye; but we know very little of their daily life or how they bring up their young ones.

Of Fur Seals and Sea Lions, however, we know a good deal, and a singular history it is. They spend the greater part of the year in huge shoals in the sea, rising and falling, gambolling and diving in the water, feeding on the fish, and probably migrating from colder to warmer seas in the winter from either pole. But the interesting time of their life is in the spring, when the northern eared seals have often been watched as they come to the shores of the Aleutian Isles to bring up their families.

For then begins the fight which seals shall get the most wives. Early in May the fathers begin to arrive—strong old seals, which have gone through the battle many years before and know the rules. They are huge fellows six or seven feet long, with enormous eye-teeth and cutting teeth next to them, which together grip like a vice. They come up at first singly and then in greater numbers, swimming powerfully and laying hold of the rocks with their flippers so as to haul themselves up on land, taking the best positions they can find on the edge of the water to watch for the arrival of the mothers. Yet still more and more fathers arrive as time goes on, and these are obliged to go farther inland, for all the shore stations are soon occupied, and each sea lion defends his own plot of ground with tooth and flipper.

Fig. 82.

Sea Lions gathered on one of the Pribylov Islands, watching for wives.

Thus, in about a month’s time, from the shore right inland, the whole island is covered with male seals. And now the mothers arrive, coming to the islands that their little ones may be born. They are very much smaller, not much more than four feet long, lighter in colour than the fathers, gentle and inoffensive; and as they swim up to the island each father seal tries, by coaxing, pulling, and tugging, to persuade a mate to come on to his rock. If he succeeds he has then to keep her, for the sea lions behind, which cannot reach the sea, are on the watch to steal her.

Now he might make quite sure of his prize if he would be content with one, but he wants several; and the next young mother swimming up calls off his attention, and while he is courting her his neighbour behind tries to carry his first wife away, lifting her by the back of the neck as a cat does a kitten. Then often a terrible battle begins, and the poor mothers are pulled hither and thither till one male seal secures her, and then the whole thing begins again. This constant fighting and lovemaking go on for several days till all the sea lions have wives—those on the shore many, those behind perhaps very few. Then all settle down quietly, the little sea lions are born, bleating like young lambs, and family life begins. But the peace does not last long, for no sooner are mothers able to leave their little ones than the old contest begins again, and happy the father who can keep his wives together through a whole season!

And now comes the most remarkable point. As a rule, seals are immense eaters, and they become very fat. But from the time that the fathers land upon the rocks till they go back to the water after about two months, they have never been known to leave their position to take food, so busy are they defending their wives. And when the two months are over, during which the little ones have been trying their strength in the waves and learning to swim, the fathers, which have grown thin and meagre, having used up all their fat, swim away and do not come back. The mothers, however, with the children, and those young bachelors, which have not yet taken wives, remain on the islands sporting and enjoying themselves till autumn, when they, too, start off for the open sea till spring comes round again.

Such is the history of the eared seals. And now that we have studied their form, and seen that their skeleton is like that of other animals, though their arms and legs are disguised as flippers, we shall understand our own home seals better; for the chief difference between them and the higher seals is merely that their front legs are much shorter, and that their hind legs are turned back so as to lie in a line with the body (see Fig. 81), while they are closely bound to the tail down right as far as the heel, so that they cannot throw their hind flippers forward nor use them in walking. Thus they have become still more completely aquatic animals, using their hind legs entirely in swimming, when they serve as great oars, working something like the screw of a steamer. The consequence is that they are terribly awkward on land, though they get along very fast by jerking their body forward, or sometimes by dragging themselves by their front flippers.

This, however, matters very little to them, for their home is the sea. True, they may often be seen lying asleep on sandbanks or on rocks jutting out of the water, but they rarely venture far up the land, always remaining where they can slip back into their true home at the least alarm. So they live in the seas almost all over the world. They may be known from the higher seals chiefly by their want of outer ears, their backward-turned legs, and their feet with both the great and little toes larger than the inner ones; but their life is much the same. Some live near our own shores, especially in Scotland; some are peculiar to Australia and New Zealand; others crowd the icy seas of Greenland, sleeping in large herds on the ice-fields, where the polar bear makes them his prey; while others again live on the pack ice round the South Pole, the huge Elephant seal, with its long tapir-like nose, basking on the shores of Kerguelen’s Land and the islands of the southern seas—a monster twelve feet or more long, with his smaller wives beside him.

* * * * *

Thus the seals are bold ocean lovers, feeding entirely on animal food, and finding plenty of it in the wide sea as they roam. But there is another family of warm-blooded animals, pure vegetable-feeders, which also must have found their way in distant ages into the water; for they too are milk-givers, and though they have lost their hind legs, have still the front legs with all their proper bones, with the hands turned into flippers.

These animals are the curious sea-cows or Manatees, which wander under water along the east coast of Africa and west coast of South America, feeding in the bays and often up the rivers, on the seaweeds and water-plants of all kinds; while another kind with tusks, called the Dugong, feeds all along the shores of the Indian Ocean and Australia.

It is strange that while every child knows something about seals, very few people have heard of these gentle grazing manatees and dugongs, the only large vegetable-feeders of the sea. Yet they are curious, interesting animals, and seem to be the forms which have given rise to the popular stories of mermaids,[185] for they suckle their young ones at the breast, clasping them with their flippers, and when they raise their heads in the water have something the appearance of an uncouth mother nursing her child.

Fig. 83.

The Manatee or Sea Cow grazing.

But very uncouth indeed! for they are long barrel-shaped creatures, with a thick skin like the elephant’s, with short stiff hairs upon it. Their head is small, with no outer ears, and very insignificant eyes surrounded with wrinkles; their lips are thick, heavy, and covered with short bristles, and above them two narrow nostrils open and close according as they are above or under water. Their front flippers, which are all they have, are long and broad, with faintly-marked flat nails upon them, and behind these their body tapers away gradually into

Footnote 185. Hence their name Sirenia, a curious name for voiceless animals.

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