The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1888-01-14
A BABY IN FURS.
Some Very Singular Habits of the Seal
Family.

ftAy VI Lne seal
Family.
On any one of a great many small
islands along the uninhabited parts of
our coasts lives a little beast whose
babyhoOd is one of the strangest we
know. The largest tribes of these ami
mails live far away to the North, and
they are much more numerous in the
Pacific than in the Atlantic Ocean.
1t is so cold and wet in his native
land that this creature wears two coats
of fur to keep warm, and it is so I'M
comfortable for men that no one,
except the natives, who are used to the
climate, cares to stay there long
enough to find out about his ways.
But this baby happens to be very
important youngster, because the coat
he wears is so desired by ladies to put
on their own backs that it becomes
very valuable. 1t is scal-skin, and the
baby, of course, is the fur seal. A few
years ago Prof. Henry w. Elliott was
sent by the Smithsonian Institution of
Washington to find out all about seals,
and what he tells us of the first few
months of seal baby life is most curious
and interesting.
When this infant comes into the cold,
wet world, he is about as big as half
grown cat He is dressed in suit of
rather long, black hair, with an under
coat of fine, short fur, and he has a
small white spot behind each forearm.
His head is pretty, as are the heads of
~0ft seals; ~and he has beautiful, large,
dark-blue eyes, with long lashes. His
foretlippers, broad, finlike looking
things, are extremely useful. On them
he walks, taking two short, mincing
steps, then bringing up with jerk his
body, which rests on the heels of his
hindfiippers. With these also he
swims. His hindflippers, however, are
the strangest members one can mag
inc. They are long and thin, or fiat,
as Prof. Elliott says, like black kid
glove pressed flat and wrinkled. The
long fingers, turned far out on each
side, flap about in a useless kind of way.
In swimming they are used to steer
with, but on shore merely to fan and
scratch himself He never rests on
them.
The young seal is regular baby.
The first thing he does is to cry with a
weak "blaat," like that of lamb. He
has, too, a baby's way of eating till he
is too full and is obliged to let the food
come up again, which looks droll
enough in an animal.
One of the most peculiar things is his
fondness for babies of his own kind
AS soon as he can get about, he
leaves his home and joins his fellow
babies. These little fellows collect in
great numbers by themselves, back of
the ground their elders occupy. When
a mother-seal comes up from the sea to
nurse her little one, she approaches
the nursery of thousands of youngsters
looking all alike, calling as she comes.
Hundreds of little voices answer her
call, but she knows her own, and bitches
herself through the crowd, pushing
the others right and left, till she
reaches him and feeds him.
Then she goes away and leaves him
with his playfellows. She doesn't seem
to care that he prefers to be with them;
in fact, this is seal fashion. When they
go back to the life in the sea, the
fathers go by themselves, the mothers
in parties of their own, the half grown
young bachelors" as they are called,
in their own company, and, strangest
of all, the babies also together.
A very interesting sight is field five
or six miles long filed with little seals,
hundreds of thousands of them, almost
as thick rs grains of sands on the
shore. Many are lying around in every
possible position. Some of them are
flat on their backs, with hindfippers
drawn up to the chin and the forefip-
pers crossed on the breast; others lie
fiat on the stomach, with hindHppers
under the body; still others on the
side, with one flipper held up in the
air; while some are curled up in a ring
like dog
Most of these babies sleep in rest
less, jerky, nervous way, as if they had
bad dreams. Many will be seen play
ing with each other, Looping over the
ground uneasily, day and night alike,
or rolling over and over in good-na-
tured frolic; for these amiable little
beasts are never ill-natured. The
sounds arising from the multitude will