The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1886-05-07
SEAL PUPPIES,
Interesting Facts Concerning Their Habits
and Mode of Life.

and Mode of Life.
Alaska Is the favorite home of the fur
seal. About the middle of May they
gather on the various Islands of that in
teresting country in great numbers.
Soon after landing the females begin to
find their young, of which they have
but one; at great intervals twins. AS
soon as the little fellow is born on the
sand he begins to call for his mother
with husky, strange voice, like the
bleating of lamb. He also begins to
puddle about with his eyes wide open,
evidently looking for refreshments.
The pup for the first three months or SO
is black as Jet, with two little white
spots Just back of his forearm. When
first bora they are about one foot to
fourteen inches in length, and weighing
from three to four pounds. The mother
never fondles or caresses her offspring,
but leaves it in the sand with hundreds
and thousands of other puppies, and
goes away to the sea to battle and catch
fish for food.
The little puppy does not even know
his own mother from any other, but is
80 constituted that he keeps up that
frequent bleating, so that when his
mother returns she instantly recognizes
the voice of her own from all the rest,
and nurses it.
Early in August the pups begin to
learn to swim, for during the first fifty
or sixty days of their life they can swim
about as well as a stone. Some natur-
alists aver that their mothers drive them
down into the water and teach them the
art of swimming. This Is not true.
After they have attained the age of six
weeks or two months they 60 Of their
own choice down into the margin of the
surf, where the water rushes out over
them, and in turn leaves them on solid
ground. If puppy happens to be
washed off his feet and carried out be-
yond his depth. he becomes greatly
alarmed, opens wide his mouth and big
eyes, and struggles manfully for the
shOre. Many of them are drowned in
this way. This kind of practice is kept
up till the little fellows are able to
swim in all sorts Of ways, div
ing. twisting. and floating on
their backs till they are completely
tired out, when they crawl out on the
sand and curl down for q nap. When
this is done, usually occupying less than
an hour. they are at it again. The
mother never takes the slightest super
vision of her children's swimming or
any thing else, except to come out Of the
sea at intervals and give him nurse.
About the middle Of October the pup
pies completely shed their black hair
and take on beautiful steel-gray hair,
with bright brown under-fur. This is
their sea-going coat Early in winter
they leave Alaska in small squads. and
do not see land again until their return
the next May. They 60, seemingly by
common consent, to the south, and are
soon lost in the vast and wide ocean.
where they spread themselves out all
over the North Pacific from Oregon to
Japan. They rest and sleep in the
water with the greatest comfort from
November to May, when those of them
fortunate enough to escape the shark
and other enemies return again to the
same spot where they were born, having
been on a voyage of seven months and
thousands of miles on the briny deep
Rambler.