THE SEAL TRIBE
We now come to a group of carnivorous or flesh-eating mammals which live
in the water--the seals.
People sometimes think that these creatures are fishes; but that is
quite a mistake, for their blood is as hot as our own, and they breathe
by means of nostrils and lungs just as we do, and not by means of gills,
like the fishes. Then they have not fins to keep their bodies upright in
the water as fishes have, neither do they swim by means of their tails;
and their bodies are covered with fur, not with scales.
HOW SEALS SWIM
So, you see, seals are very different from fishes, although they spend
almost the whole of their lives in the water. But nature has formed them
in such a way that they can swim and dive quite as well as the fishes
can. Yet it is difficult to see how they do so. If you watch a tame seal
swimming about in a large tank of water, you will see that it glides
smoothly and swiftly and easily and gracefully along, rising and diving
and turning with the most perfect ease; but _how_ it swims you will
not be able to tell at all.
You know, however, that you can row a boat by means of a single oar, if
you work it from side to side at the stern. You will not travel very
fast, partly because the oar is not very big, and partly because you are
not very strong. But still the boat will move.
Now if you look at the hinder feet of a seal, you will see that they are
very broad, that they are set far back upon the body, and that, if
necessary, they can be placed side by side together. Then think of the
body of the seal as a live boat, and of these great broad feet as an
oar worked from the stern, and you will be able to understand how the
animal swims. It just places these feet side by side, and uses them in
such a way that they act upon the water exactly as an oar does, while
their strength is so great that they drive the body along very swiftly.
HOW THEY ARE KEPT WARM
But if the seal is a hot-blooded animal, how can it remain in the sea
for days together without being chilled? If we go to the seaside, and
wish to bathe, we are advised not to stay in the water for more than ten
or fifteen minutes; and if we were to do so, we might be made seriously
ill. Yet the seal can live for days, or even weeks, in the icy seas of
the far north and yet never seem to suffer from the cold at all. How is
this?
Well, the fact is that, first of all, nature has supplied the seal with
a kind of mackintosh, to keep it dry. This mackintosh, in most seals, is
made of a double coat of fur. First there is an outer layer of long,
stout hairs, almost like bristles; and underneath there is generally
another layer of soft, close hairs--those which you see in a lady's
sealskin jacket. And in order to keep the water from passing through it,
this double coat of fur is kept constantly oiled. All over the surface
of a seal's skin are thousands upon thousands of little holes, each of
which opens into a tiny bag of oil, and this oil is constantly oozing
out on to the fur. So, you see, the furry coat really does act like a
mackintosh, for it quite prevents the seal from ever getting wet.
When an animal lives in water which is often covered with ice, however,
something more than a mackintosh is necessary in order to keep it warm;
so under the mackintosh nature has provided the seal with a thick
greatcoat. And this greatcoat is made of a substance much warmer than
cloth, or even than fur. It is made of fat. Just under the skin,
covering the whole of the body, is a layer of fat two or three inches
thick. And this keeps the seal so warm that even when it is lying upon
ice it never gets chilled in the least.
FULLY FITTED FOR ITS HOME
The nostrils and the ears of the seal are made in such a way that water
cannot enter them when the animal is diving. They are furnished with
little valves, which are so arranged that they close as soon as the
water presses upon them. And the greater the pressure the more tightly
they shut up, so that not the tiniest drop of water can ever enter them.
There is still one more way in which the animal is specially fitted for
its life in the water. It has to feed on fishes, and fishes are very
slippery creatures. If you have ever tried to hold a live fish in your
hand you will know that it is a difficult thing to do, for the fish just
gives a wriggle and a twist, and slips out of your grasp as if it had
been oiled. So that it would seem quite impossible for the seal to hold
its finny victims, even if it overtook and seized them. But when we come
to look at its teeth we find that those which we call molars, or
grinders, are set with long, sharp points; so that when a fish is seized
they enter its body, and hold it in a grip from which there is no
escape.
THE COMMON SEAL
There are many different kinds of seals, but we shall only be able to
tell you about four or five of the best known.
The first of these is the common seal. It is found on both sides of the
Atlantic Ocean and in the North Pacific. On some coasts it is much
disliked by fishermen, owing to the great number of fishes which it
devours. It is so cunning that it will even find its way in among the
nets they have let down, feast heartily upon the captive fish, and then
quietly swim out again, often doing the same thing day after day for
weeks together. And it is almost impossible to destroy it, for it seems
to know perfectly well when its enemies are on the watch, and will only
expose its nostrils above the water when it comes up to the surface to
breathe.
Very often fishermen consider it "unlucky" to kill a seal, so that the
animal is able to carry on its robberies without being interfered with.
The common seal, when fully grown, is about five feet long, and is
yellowish gray in color, with a number of darker spots sprinkled over
the body and sides. It is very active in the sea, and fairly active on
land, for although it cannot walk it will shuffle along over the beach
at a wonderful pace for such an animal. As it does so, it throws up a
perfect shower of stones with its hinder nippers, and those who have
chased it have often thought that it was doing so on purpose, and was
actually throwing stones at them.
If this seal is caught when quite young and treated kindly, it soon
becomes exceedingly tame. It has even been known to live indoors, like a
dog or a cat, and to lie for hours together basking in front of the
fire. And in more than one case, when its owner wished to get rid of it,
and put it back into the sea, it swam after him, crying so pitifully as
he rowed away that he could not bear to leave it, and took it home with
him again after all.
SEA-LIONS
The sea-lions are so called because they are supposed to look very much
like lions. But it is not easy to see the resemblance. Sometimes they
are called hair-seals, because there is no soft woolly under-fur beneath
the coating of thick bristles, as there is in most of the animals
belonging to this family.
There are nearly always sea-lions to be seen in zoos, and they are so
intelligent and clever that the keepers are able to teach them to
perform many tricks. A wooden platform is built for them, with the upper
end standing some feet above the surface of the water, and they are very
fond of shuffling up this, lying at the end until a number of visitors
have come close to the railings to look at them, and then diving into
the water with a great splash, so as to send a shower of spray over the
spectators.
There are several different kinds of these animals, of which the
Patagonian sea-lion is perhaps the most numerous. It is found on both
the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts of South America, and is rather
more lion-like than its relations, since it has a crest of long hairs on
the back of its neck, which really looks something like a mane. But you
cannot see this crest when the animal is wet, as it then lies down flat
upon the skin. The color of the fur varies much, for the old males are
brown, the females are gray, and the young ones are a rich chocolate,
which begins to grow paler when they are almost twelve months old.
The California sea-lion is a distinct species of the Pacific coast, and
is found from there to Japan. On the rocks off San Francisco is one of
its ancient rookeries, and the animal is there preserved by the
government as one of the sights of the bay. In traveling menageries and
in zoos you may hear the California sea-lions loudly and continually
barking.
A sea-lion that lived for a good many years in the London Zoo was
exceedingly clever, for it would climb up and down a ladder, with either
its head or its tail first, fire off a gun, kiss its keeper, and catch
fishes in its mouth if they were thrown to it, just as a dog will catch
a piece of biscuit. Cleverer still, however, were a party of sea-lions,
established at the London Hippodrome in 1902, for they would play a kind
of football with their heads, catching the ball and passing it from one
to another in a most wonderful way, and scarcely ever missing it or
making a mistake. They would take part, too, in a musical performance,
one playing the drum, another cymbals, a third the horn, and a fourth
the bells, while their trainer stood in the middle and beat time. And
one of them would actually balance an upright pole, with a fish on the
top, on the tip of its nose, waddle across the stage, still holding the
pole upright, and then suddenly jerk the pole aside, and catch the fish
in its mouth as it fell.
But sea-lions are rather expensive pets to keep, for they have such very
large appetites. A single sea-lion will eat about twenty-five pounds of
fish in a single day! And when one remembers that these seals are
sometimes found in herds of hundreds of thousands, one would almost
think that they must very soon devour all the fishes in the sea.
When fully grown the male of the largest species of sea-lion is often
ten feet long and weighs a thousand pounds.
FUR-SEALS
The fur-seals are sometimes known as sea-bears, although they are not
even as much like bears as the sea-lions are like lions. They are
destroyed in very great numbers for the sake of their skins, which have
a thick coating of soft fur under the stiff outer bristles. These
bristles, of course, have to be removed before the fur can be used, and
this is done by shaving the inner surface of the skin away until their
roots are cut off. They can then be pulled out without any difficulty,
while the roots of the under-fur, which are not nearly so deeply buried,
are not hurt in the least. But the operation is not at all an easy one,
and can only be performed by a highly skilled workman, and that is one
reason why sealskin jackets are so expensive.
Another reason is that in almost every skin there are a number of flaws,
all of which have to be most carefully cut out, after which the holes
have to be filled up in such a way as to leave no traces of the
operation. Then the fur has to be cleaned, combed, and prepared and
dyed, so that the garments which are made from it really cannot be sold
except at a very high price.
These seals are not hunted in the sea, for they are such good swimmers
that it would be very difficult to kill them. So during the greater part
of the year they are allowed to live in peace. But during the
breeding-season they live on land, lying upon certain parts of the coast
in enormous herds; and the seal-hunters visit these places, drive the
young males to a distance from the rest, and there kill them by striking
them on the head with a heavy club.
Such vast numbers of fur-seals were destroyed in this way that at last
it became necessary to protect them, for fear lest they should be
entirely killed off. So only a certain number may now be killed in each
year.
The best known of the fur-seals is the northern sea-bear, which is found
on both shores of the Northern Pacific. It used to visit the Pribilof
Islands in enormous numbers during the breeding-season, but lately so
many have been killed, despite protective laws, that now the herds are
quite small.
THE HOODED SEAL
Another seal whose fur is very valuable is called the hooded seal, or
crested seal, because the adult male has a singular growth upon the
front part of the head. This hood or crest consists of a kind of bag of
skin which lies just above the nose, and can be inflated with air at
will. What its use may be in a state of nature is not known. But when
the seal is hunted it is often of the greatest service, for the force of
a blow which would otherwise have caused instant death is so broken by
the crest that the animal is merely stunned for a few moments, and is
able to slip into the water before the hunter returns to take off its
skin.
This seal is rather a formidable animal when it is enraged, for it is
quite large when fully grown, and uses both its claws and its teeth in
fighting. The male animals are very quarrelsome among themselves, and
most desperate battles take place.
These and other hair-seals lie in summer upon floating ice-fields where
their young are born. Steamers filled with men find them off the coast
of Labrador, land on the ice, and kill thousands for the sake of their
skins and the oil tried out of the blubber or underlying fat.
THE SEA-ELEPHANT
One of the biggest of all the seals is the great sea-elephant, also
called elephant-seal, which frequents the shores of many of the islands
in the Antarctic Ocean. It owes its name partly to its enormous size,
the old males sometimes reaching a length of eighteen or even twenty
feet, and partly to its very curious trunk, which is sometimes as much
as a foot long. In the females and the young animals this trunk is
wanting, and even in the male it is seldom seen unless the animal is
excited, when it can be blown out very much like the bag of the hooded
seal.
The fur of the sea-elephant is much too coarse to be of any great value.
But its skin can be made into excellent leather, while the thick coat of
blubber which lies beneath it furnishes large quantities of useful oil.
The consequence is that the animal has been much hunted, and is now
comparatively scarce even in districts where it was once very common. It
is not nearly so fierce as the hooded seal, and almost always takes to
flight if it is attacked, its huge body quivering like a vast mass of
jelly as it shuffles awkwardly along over the beach. But the males fight
most fiercely with one another, inflicting really terrible wounds by
means of their tusk-like teeth.
THE WALRUS
The strangest of all the seals is the walrus, whose tusks, representing
the canine teeth, are sometimes as much as two feet long.
This animal is found only in the northern parts of the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans, and is not often seen outside the arctic circle.
Formerly it was far more widely distributed, and in the Atlantic was
even seen frequently as far south as the Gulf of St. Lawrence; but it
has been so persecuted by hunters that it has quite disappeared from
many districts where once it was in great numbers.
The walrus is not quite so large as the sea-elephant, nevertheless, it
is a very big animal, for a full-grown male will often measure twelve
feet in length, and will weigh nearly a ton. It uses its tusks for many
different purposes. When it wants to climb upon an ice-floe, for
example, it will dig them deeply into the ice, and so obtain purchase
while it raises its huge body out of the water. They are very formidable
weapons, too, and the animal can strike so quickly with them, both
sideways and downward, that it is not at all easy to avoid their stroke.
Then they are very useful in obtaining food. If a walrus finds the body
of a dead whale, it will cut off huge lumps of the flesh by means of its
tusks; and very often it will dig in the sandy mud with them for mussels
and cockles. The consequence is that the tusks are frequently broken,
while they are nearly always very much worn at the tips.
The name walrus is a corruption of whale-horse. The animal is sometimes
known as the sea-horse, and also as the morse.