The pups begin to take to the water when they are about a month old, clumsily at first, but soon becoming accustomed to the element. The rookery at the Pribylov Islands is broken up during the last days of July and the first week in August, The young have then become able to take care of themselves, and are abandoned by their mothers, who give themselves up to lounging in the waves. The "married seals," who have been constantly at their posts and restlessly active for three months without taking food or water, go down to the sea to feed and wash. Notwithstanding their long fast and hard work, they are not emaciated, but come out in good condition, having sustained life all the time by absorption of the thick stores of fat hidden under their skins. The mothers continue to idle, and the pups and "bachelors" to sport and frolic, till the storms of autumn begin to come on, when they all depart for warmer latitudes, after which they give no account of themselves till the next spring.
Dr. Gray, of the British Museum, made out nine genera and seventeen species of eared seals. He based his distinctions too often on insignificant differences, and erred to excess. Mr. Clark recognizes but nine species, and includes them all in the single genus Otaria. While the true seals confine themselves to cool latitudes, the Otariæ bear warmth and appear to be sensitive to changes of temperature, avoiding extreme cold. In the Atlantic Ocean they are found only in the extreme southern part, beginning at the mouth of the
The best-known species is the northern sea-bear (Otaria ursina, Fig. 4), which inhabits the Pribylov Islands. It frequents those islands in enormous numbers, their whole seal population being