SEALS AND THEIR WAYS—BREEDING HABITS OF THE
SEA-BEAR—SEA-ELEPHANTS—THE WALRUS AND THE POLAR BEAR—MATERNAL
AFFECTION UTILISED—A WINTER SLEEP IN A SNOW-HOUSE—A DANGEROUS
INTRUSION—BREAKFAST WITH AN ALLIGATOR—THE CROCODILE AND THE
TROCHILUS.
If the beaver has been to some extent structurally modified in relation
to its water-loving habits, we have in the seals a group of marine
carnivorous animals whose ancestors, as we plainly see, must at one time
have been terrestrial, but whose limbs and bodies have become almost
entirely adapted for an aquatic existence, and who are never found far
from the vicinity of the water. They lie, however, on the rocks or ice
to rest, and at certain seasons of the year repair to remote, but,
unfortunately, not inaccessible islands, for the purpose of bringing
forth their young. Seals are most numerous in the arctic and antarctic
regions, and to render them impervious to the great cold of these
latitudes their bodies are covered with a thick, dense fur, which, as
with the beaver, is of two kinds, forming an upper and an under coating.
The under fur of some species is very much sought after, and to obtain
it, vast multitudes of these poor animals are, every year, slaughtered
under circumstances of great barbarity. As the value of sealskin is far
more artificial than real, inasmuch as there are few ladies who could
not be quite warm enough without wearing it, it is to be hoped that as
they become aware that almost every jacket represents a seal that has
been skinned alive, they will cease to make these cruel purchases, and
thus save millions of innocent and interesting creatures from perishing
off the face of the earth.
These fur-bearing seals—or sea-bears as they are called—are polygamous,
and their breeding habits when assembled on their far-off island
nurseries are very curious and interesting. The male sea-bears—or bulls
as they are called—are very much larger than the females—in fact, they
weigh almost six times as much. They are, therefore, able to seize them
in their teeth, and lift them about almost as easily as a cat does its
kittens, and each bull gets for himself, in this way, as many females or
cows as he can, and guards them on a certain spot of ground, which he
looks upon as his own, and from which he never stirs. If he were to stir
from it he would be attacked by some of the bulls round about, into whose
territory he would have to intrude—for they are all packed very closely
together. Each bull does his best to keep his harem of cows to himself,
but they all try to steal from each other’s harems, and thus fights
between the bulls are continually taking place. They bite fiercely at one
another, and the whole air is full of the loud, harsh roarings which they
utter. Sometimes two males will each seize hold of the same female, and
then they both pull and tug at her, until sometimes—as neither will relax
his hold—the poor animal is almost torn in half. The bulls fight most on
first landing on the island, and before the harems have been got together
by them. Afterwards things grow quieter, but each bull is continually
occupied in guarding his harem.
One of the most interesting accounts of the breeding habits of the
fur-seal is given by a Mr. Elliott, who spent a long time at their
breeding stations, off the northern coasts of Alaska. He says: “It
appears to be a well-understood principle among the able-bodied bulls
that each one shall remain undisturbed on his ground, which is,
usually, about ten feet square, provided he is strong enough to hold
it against all comers; for the crowding in of fresh bulls often causes
the removal of many of those who, though equally able-bodied, at first,
have exhausted themselves by fighting earlier, and are driven, by the
fresher animals, back farther and higher up on the rookery” (“rookeries”
is the name given to these seal-breeding stations, though it does not
appear to me to be a very good one). “Some of these bulls,” continues
Mr. Elliott, “show wonderful strength and courage. I have marked one
veteran who was among the first to take up his position, and that on the
water-line, where, at least, fifty or sixty desperate battles were fought
victoriously by him with nearly as many different seals, who coveted his
position, and when the fighting season was over, I saw him covered with
scars and gashes, an eye gouged out, but lording it bravely over his
harem of fifteen or twenty cows, all huddled together on the same spot he
had first chosen.”
As to the fighting itself, Mr. Elliott says it “is mostly or entirely
done with the mouth, the opponents seizing each other with the teeth, and
clenching the jaws. Nothing but sheer strength can shake them loose, and
that effort almost always leaves an ugly wound, the sharp canines tearing
out deep gutters in the skin and blubber, or shredding the flippers
into ribbon-strips. They usually approach each other with averted heads
and a great many false passes, before either one or the other takes the
initiative by gripping; their heads are darted out and back as quick as
a flash; their hoarse roaring and shrill, piping whistle never ceases,
whilst their fat bodies writhe and swell with exertion and rage, fur
flying in air and blood streaming down—all combined make a picture fierce
and savage enough, and, from its great novelty, exceedingly strange at
first sight.” Sooner or later one of the two combatants proves stronger
than the other, and when this becomes sufficiently apparent, the weaker
of the two withdraws. Instead of pursuing him, as might have been
expected, the victorious bull stays where he was, fans himself with one
of his hind flippers, as though so much exertion had made him hot, and,
with a satisfied chuckle, seems to rejoice in his victory.
An older writer who visited the islands more than 170 years ago, and who
calls the sea-bears sea-cats, says: “When two of them only fight, the
battle lasts frequently for an hour. Sometimes they rest awhile, lying
by one another; then both rise at once, and renew the engagement. They
fight with their heads erect, and turn them aside from one another’s
stroke. So long as their strength is equal, they fight with their fore
paws; but when one of them becomes weak, the other seizes him with his
teeth, and throws him upon the ground. When the lookers-on see this,
they come to the assistance of the vanquished. The wounds they make with
their teeth are as deep as those made with a sabre; and in the month of
July you will hardly see one of them that has not some wound upon him.
After the end of the battle they throw themselves into the water to wash
their bodies.” This account differs in some particulars from that of Mr.
Elliott, who says nothing about the seals fighting with their flippers
or entering the water afterwards. The latter hardly seems likely, as the
females would be then left unguarded; but perhaps, the actions of the
seals differ a little, according as it is early or late in the season.
This latter informant, who was a Russian, tells us that the females who
may be present at such conflicts always follow the victor. At the time
when he lived, these poor sea-bears were not persecuted in the way they
are now. People hardly ever went to their breeding islands then. It is
pleasanter to think of these strange, fierce battles raging amidst ice
and snow, in the far-off lonely regions of the north, without anyone to
see or interfere with them, than amidst human surroundings of not at all
a pleasant character—for the men who skin the seals alive for ladies are
amongst the most brutal and debased of mankind. There is always more of
the romance of natural history when animals are not interfered with.
The fur-bearing seal is only one of many species belonging to the
family. Some of them are very large animals, the largest being the great
elephant-seal or sea-elephant, a creature which sometimes measures as
much as thirty feet in length, and fifteen or eighteen feet round the
largest part of the body, so that it is much larger and heavier than
the real elephant. They are polygamous, like the animals we have just
been speaking about; and it must be a still more wonderful thing to
see such huge creatures fighting. This the males do with the greatest
fury; but the first descriptive word upon our title-page receives a
better illustration in the love and devotion which they show towards
the females. They will not desert them when they are in any danger, and
this fact, so much to their credit, is taken advantage of by the brutal
seal-hunters, who attack the females first, and the males, who remain
with them, afterwards. Were they to reverse the process of destruction,
the harem belonging to any male that was killed would immediately take
to the sea and disappear. Whilst he lives, however, they connect their
safety with his presence, and so continue to crowd about him until he
breathes his last. My authority for this statement is the Rev. J. G.
Wood, but I have not been able to find anything bearing upon it in the
accounts of those having personal experience of the habits of these
animals, which I should have liked to have done. If true, then we have
here a striking instance of affectionate solicitude in an animal, as
contrasted with that callousness and deadness of sympathy on the part of
man, which the slaughter of beasts always and necessarily produces.
The sea-elephant is enormously fat, and the boiling of its fat down
into oil, with the subsequent sale of this, is the industry with which
its slaughter is connected. Some time ago this industry was not known,
and some years hence it will have ceased with the life of the species.
The world, therefore, will have gained nothing permanently by the oil,
whereas it will have lost for ever an interesting and wonderful creature.
The sea-elephant is a denizen of the southern seas, and used once to be
very plentiful on the coast of California and Mexico. Now, however, owing
to the persecution to which it has been subjected, one is scarcely ever
to be seen there.
Next, perhaps, to the sea-elephant in size, comes the great morse, or
walrus, of the arctic and antarctic oceans. The principal peculiarity of
this huge seal—the sea-horse as it is sometimes called—is the pair of
long tusks, reminding one of those of an elephant, which it carries in
its upper jaw. The length of these tusks is about a foot, and sometimes
they weigh ten pounds apiece. The Esquimaux use them in the making of
fish-hooks—for the fish-hooks of all savages are very different-looking
articles to our own, and made in a very different way, though the
principle is the same. But what does the walrus itself use them for?
Wielded by an animal of such vast size and strength, they must, no doubt,
be formidable weapons of offence, but they cannot be used to give a
direct thrust forward, as the elephant uses his tusks, since they hang
down from the jaw instead of projecting horizontally beyond it. Were
one male walrus, however, to succeed in rearing his head over the neck
or shoulder of another, he could inflict, it is evident, a formidable
wound by stabbing downwards with his two curved ivory stilettoes. It
would seem, however, that it is mostly as an aid to the procuring of
its food that the walrus uses its great tusks. With them it digs and
scrapes amongst the sand and shingle on the bottom of the sea, along the
coast, thus stirring up various molluscs and crustaceans, on which it
principally feeds. In climbing up upon the rocks or slippery shores, too,
it finds its tusks useful to hook on with, as has been related by various
eye-witnesses and denied by various professors.
The regions where the walrus dwells are equally the abode of the white,
or polar, bear, and it is possible that these two great creatures
sometimes come into collision. Not that the walrus would ever interfere
with the bear, but, in spite of its size, the converse may sometimes be
the case, when the latter is pressed by hunger. In such an encounter I
should think, myself, that the walrus would have the best of it. With
his thick skin and still thicker blubber underneath it, he could hardly
be very much injured by the teeth and claws of the bear, whereas a dig
of his own tusks might well put the latter _hors de combat_, or even
terminate his existence. For large and strong as a polar bear is—and he
exceeds even the grizzly in size—he is inferior in both these particulars
to the vast bulk and huge, though unwieldy, strength of the walrus.
Doubtless he is aware of this fact, nor have I ever heard of such a
combat being witnessed. Still, as I say, it might occur, and then what a
sight it would be! What mighty blows and buffets! what horrible growlings
and roarings!—the bear, no doubt, reared on its hind legs, striving to
tear at the throat or neck of the walrus as the most vulnerable part.
The great seal, however, swinging its huge head from side to side, would
shake off, each time, the grasp of its shaggy assailant, and at length
seizing an opportunity to which the methods of the latter would perhaps
have contributed, might transfix his neck or shoulder with a terrific
downstroke of its tusks; crushing him at the same time on to the ice or
hardened snow, now all bloodstained with the conflict. But we will not
pursue further an imaginary picture.
But though they can defend themselves when the necessity arises, walruses
are not of a combative disposition. They go in herds, the members of
which are much attached to each other, so that an attack upon any one
arouses the resentment, and may even provoke the retaliation, of the
rest. When tamed, too, walruses have shown themselves as affectionate
towards human beings as any dog could be. One brought alive from
Archangel to St. Petersburg, in 1829, became deeply attached to its
keeper—a lady, Madame Dennebecq by name.
One might expect that an animal thus capable of forming friendships would
also show great parental affection. Accordingly we find this quality
highly developed in the walrus, and the usual sportsman has given the
usual account of how he witnessed it. A female, in this case, being
wounded, placed her right fore fin or flipper about the body of her young
calf, and endeavoured to shield it from the harpoon, against which its
years were no protection, by the constant interposition of her own body.
The terror of the calf, with the look of anxiety upon the mother’s face,
accompanied with a reckless disregard of her own danger, were, we are
told, most affecting, but did not, unfortunately, affect the result,
both the poor animals being slaughtered. Walrus-hunters do not often let
their feelings get the better of them, they prefer to get the better of
the walruses, through _their_ feelings, which are tenderer. Thus, having
caught a young one, they induce it to grunt, when the herd come to its
assistance and are shot or harpooned.
It is, however, to its habit of going in herds that the walrus owes much
of its safety. Even though half famished, a polar bear would hardly
venture to attack one—even if only a young one—under these circumstances.
Indeed, though so large an animal, the polar bear contents himself, for
the most part, with the smaller kinds of seals, which he catches when
they are asleep on the ice—perhaps, sometimes, even in the sea: for he
is a wonderful swimmer, though not shaped quite so much like a fish as
is a seal, and with feet only, and not flippers, to swim with. So much
is said about the great size and strength of the grizzly bear that one
might think it was the largest of all the bear family, but this is not
the case. The largest of all bears are the polar bears, and this proves
that they get quite enough to eat, even though they live in the cold,
bleak north, where there are no great forests full of birds and monkeys
and all manner of creatures; no plains or prairies with antelopes, or
bisons, or herds of wild horses or zebras bounding over them, but only
desolate icefields or dreary wastes of snow. Life, indeed, in the far
north or south, is poor in species, but it is—or, at least, it was,
until civilised man came there to make it a solitude indeed—abundant in
individuals. The ice has its own herds in the shape of numberless seals
that lie upon it asleep or resting, enjoying what sun there is, during
the short summer. Even in the winter, as these creatures must have air to
breathe, they are accustomed to come out of the sea through holes in the
ice, which they manage to keep open by constantly coming up in the same
place, and so always breaking the ice, before it has time to get thick.
The polar bears watch at these seal-holes, as they are called, and seize
the seals as they come up, or else they wait till they have crawled out,
and stalk them as they lie asleep.
[Illustration: A BRAVE MOTHER.
The wounded walrus endeavoured recklessly to protect her young calf from
the harpoon.]
In this way the male polar bear, at any rate, seems able to keep himself
in food during the winter, but the female is said to hibernate, and this
she does in a very interesting and peculiar way. Where it is all ice
and snow, there are no caves for her to retire into, but she makes a
cave by utilising the materials around her in the simplest possible way.
She simply lies down in a snowstorm, and lets all the rest take care of
itself. Her weight presses down the soft snow she is lying on, and she is
soon covered up by the flakes falling upon her. She now lies in a little
cave, for, by moving and rolling, she presses the snow away from her back
and sides, so that she has a comfortable space, and does not feel cramped
and confined. If it were earth that had been flung over her, she would be
pressed down by its weight and soon suffocated, but it is different with
the soft yielding snow. Neither is she cold, for the heat from her body
warms the little cave that she lies in, just as if she were a stove; and
as the hot breath from her nostrils rises up, it thaws the snow just
above them, and makes a hole by which it escapes, and through which she
is able to breathe. Here, then, in her little vaulted chamber, with its
breathing-hole in the ceiling, the she polar bear lies snugly asleep,
all through the cold, dark winter, and when the summer comes and the sun
begins to melt the snow, out she gets, with a good appetite, all ready to
catch a seal.
I am not sure if the winter sleep of the polar bear is a heavy or a
light one, or whether the Esquimaux, who live in these arctic regions,
are bold enough to interfere with it if they happen to come upon its
sleeping-place. The brown bear of Siberia, however, is sometimes attacked
whilst hibernating, and this is a very dangerous thing to do, for this
species—unlike the black bear of America—sleeps lightly, and is very
fierce when disturbed. The way employed is for one man to descend into
the bear’s cave, at the end of a rope, the other end being held by two
or three men, who stand at the cave’s mouth. The man who goes in has a
torch, or a candle, fixed into his cap—at least I think I have somewhere
read this account—so that he can both see before him, and carry his gun
in both hands. When he sees the bear lying asleep he creeps cautiously
up, and putting the muzzle of his gun against the side of the animal’s
head, pulls the trigger. As soon as the men outside hear the roar of the
gun in the cave, they pull on the rope, and the assassin starts running
at the same time. If he stumbles or falls, he is pulled along the ground,
and in this way may avoid the rush of the bear, supposing the shot has
not killed it. If the muzzle of the gun has been well placed, it ought,
of course, to be a certain thing, but the bear may wake first, or move
just at the critical moment, or it may be difficult, in the dark cavern,
only dimly illumined by the flickering light of the candle, to see in
what position it is lying. All this has to be risked. Still, on the
whole, the chances are a good deal against the bear, and if its cavern—or
hibernaculum, to use the technical word—is once found, it is pretty sure
to be killed, even though it may, sometimes, kill a man or two first.
I forget, now, exactly where I have read this account, but it was in a
trustworthy book, I feel sure, so I hope it is correct in the main, even
though I may have forgotten some of the particulars.
Bears are the largest animals that hibernate, unless some very big
crocodiles or alligators may be considered to be larger still; and,
perhaps, as these giants attain a length of twenty or even thirty feet,
they may weigh as much or more. These creatures generally sleep in
holes under the river-bank, but the alligator of tropical America will,
sometimes, bury itself in the mud of a swamp, which may then dry up
altogether, so that an encampment, or even a hut, may be raised upon
it. In time the rains fall, the ground begins to grow moist again, and
someone lying in his hammock, or just sitting down to breakfast, may be
startled, all at once, by a great alligator rising up beneath him, out of
the mud that makes the floor of his hut.
It is not this alligator, but the crocodile of Egypt and the Nile, that
has long been famous for its friendship with a little bird, which, when
he lies on the shore, may be seen not only running all about his body,
but sometimes even inside his mouth, which the reptile holds purposely
open for him. One snap of the great jaws, and the bird would never more
be seen, but this snap is never made. The reason is that the bird is of
great service to the crocodile, by freeing it from certain small animals
which fix themselves on its body, or even within its jaws. On the other
hand, the bird is very glad to get these creatures to eat, so that the
friendship on both sides is based upon utilitarian principles. Herodotus,
who visited Egypt over 2,000 years ago, relates as follows concerning
this intimacy: “It is blind in the water (!) but very quick-sighted on
land; and because it lives for the most part in the water, its mouth is
filled with leeches. All other birds and beasts avoid him, but he is at
peace with the trochilus because he receives benefit from that bird.
For when the crocodile gets out of the water on land, and then opens
its jaws, which it does, most commonly, towards the west, the trochilus
enters its mouth and swallows the leeches: the crocodile is so well
pleased with this service that it never hurts the trochilus.”