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Their hind limbs, so wonderful in the water, are merely dragged behind the body on land. "Sealskin" should be called "Sea-lion-skin," to be exact; for it is the Sea-lions, not the true Seals, which men kill and rob of their lovely warm coats. The giant of the Seal family is the Sea-elephant; a big lumbering fellow, with a most peculiar nose.
We were now in sight of the sea-elephant, which looked like a black log lying on the beach. It was a young one and measured about twelve feet in length. When discovered it was asleep. The coast is very picturesque just there, high rocks standing out in the sea. We all trooped home together and got back in the early evening. Wednesday, May 15.
Twenty days later the Sea Lion sailed again from Rio, having sold all the sea-elephant oil that remained, and bought stores; of which, by this time, the vessel was much in want.
"Are you for a ride?" he exclaimed; and before Jerry suspected what was going to happen he found himself seated on the monster's tail! "There you go, on the back of a sea-elephant," exclaimed Mr Kilby, giving the beast a poke with his stick. "Hold on tight, and he can't hurt you." Jerry did hold on, not knowing whether to laugh or shriek out with fear.
The tops of the loftiest peaks, indeed, seemed to be dwarfed down to the monotonous level of the plain; and, where elevated at all, they resembled more a cluster of little round mounds like sugar- loaves than anything else! During the cessation of the snow-storm, the castaways contrived to secure another sea-elephant which visited the bay, Karl Ericksen harpooning him in the water.
A little wasteful, perhaps, but an excellent youth at the bottom. I dare say he lost his spars off Cape Hatteras in trying to outsail that Daggett; but I overlook all that now. He's a capital youth to work upon a whale or a sea-elephant! There isn't his equal, as I'll engage, in all Ameriky, if you'll only let him know where to find the creatur's.
The oil of the sea-elephant, together with pieces of canvass prepared for the purpose, supplied the necessary materials. So intensely severe was the weather, that Roswell had serious thoughts of returning when he reached the spot where the black had been found. But the picture of Daggett's situation that occurred to his mind, urged him on, and he proceeded.
If, however, we turn to the marine Carnivora, as we shall hereafter see, the case is widely different; for many species of seals offer extraordinary sexual differences, and they are eminently polygamous. Thus, according to Peron, the male sea-elephant of the Southern Ocean always possesses several females, and the sea-lion of Forster is said to be surrounded by from twenty to thirty females.
During the time Mr Meldrum had been taking stock of their stores, before the coming of the sea-elephant "to pay them an afternoon call," as Florry said the carpenter, with a number of the hands working under him, had been proceeding with the house-building operations; but he had to stop at last, more from want of the proper timber wherewith to complete the job than through the darkening of the afternoon on account of the approach of night.
A few stones is all they eat, though at other times they devour numbers of fish at every meal. How could you tell the Sea-lion from the real Seal? 2. Where are the Seal "rookeries"? What happens there in the springtime? 3. Why is the Sea-elephant so named? As a rule, nests or nurseries are unknown in the world of fishes.
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