The Animal World, A Book of Natural History Part 15

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 j.a.pan. 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 pa.s.sing 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 appet.i.tes. 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 sh.o.r.es 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 sh.o.r.es 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 coa.r.s.e 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 quant.i.ties 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 ma.s.s 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 c.o.c.kles. 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.

CHAPTER XIII

THE WHALE TRIBE

The whales are more thoroughly creatures of the water than even the seals, for they never come upon dry land at all, even during the breeding-season. Indeed, if a whale is unfortunate enough to be thrown upon the sh.o.r.e by a great wave, and left stranded, it cannot possibly make its way back into the sea, but is obliged to lie there till it dies.

Yet we must not think that these giant creatures are fishes; for they are as truly mammals as the seals are. Their blood is hot, and is driven through the body by a heart made up of four chambers, instead of only two. They breathe by means of nostrils and lungs, and not by means of gills. And besides that they suckle their young, just as all other mammals do.

Then, once more, if you look at the body of a whale, you will see that its tail is quite different from that of a fish. The tail of a fish is upright, but that of a whale is set crosswise. So that there is only one respect in which whales are really like fishes, and that is the general shape of the body.

These huge animals fall naturally into two families, the first consisting of those which have teeth, and the other of those which have whalebone, or baleen, instead. But in many ways the members of both these families are alike.

HOW WHALES BREATHE

All whales, for example, breathe in a very curious way. No doubt you have heard of the "spouting" of these animals, and perhaps you may have seen a picture of a whale lying on the surface of the sea, and throwing up a great column of water from its nostrils, or blow-holes. These pictures, however, are rather exaggerated, for what really happens is this: A whale, as of course you know, often remains under water for a very long time, and when at last it rises to the surface, the air in its lungs is heavily laden with moisture. When the air is discharged through the blow-holes into the cold atmosphere the moisture condenses at once into a kind of misty spray, just as that in our own breath does in very cold weather. This is what one sees when a whale is spouting, although as the animal sometimes begins to blow while its nostrils are still beneath the surface, a small quant.i.ty of sea-water may, perhaps, be thrown up too.

A whale, if it is not disturbed, will often blow fifty or sixty times in succession. Let us try to explain why it does so.

If _you_ try to hold your breath, you will find that it is very difficult to do so for more than three-quarters of a minute. But if, before you make the attempt, you get rid of as much of the air in your lungs as you possibly can, draw in a very deep breath and get rid of that, and then repeat the process about half a dozen times, you will find that you can hold your breath quite easily for at least a minute and a half. The reason is that by breathing so often and so deeply you have purified all the blood in your body, instead of having, as usual, a very large quant.i.ty which has done its work, and requires to be refreshed in the lungs before it can be of any further use.

Now the whale spouts fifty or sixty times in succession for just the same reason. It is taking a series of deep breaths so that it may purify all the blood in its body, and be able to remain under water for as long a time as possible without having to rise to the surface for air. And, besides this, there is a most wonderful arrangement in its body which enables it to stay below for very much longer than would otherwise be possible. Inside its chest it has a sort of blood-cistern, so to speak, consisting of a number of large vessels, which contain a great quant.i.ty of extra blood, besides that which is circulating through the body. This blood, also, is purified when the whale spouts. Then, when the animal has remained under water for some little time, and begins to feel the want of air, it does not rise to the surface at once, in order to breathe, but just pumps some of the extra blood from this curious cistern into its veins and arteries, to take the place of that which is used up and requires to be purified. This it can do over and over again until all the extra blood-supply is used up too, when it is obliged to rise and spout.

As a general rule a whale spends from ten to twelve minutes in spouting, and can then remain under water, if necessary, for considerably more than an hour.