The Arizona sentinel., 1888-01-28
A BABY IN FURS.
Some Very Singular Habits of the Seal
 Family.


 Family.
 On any one of great many small islands along the uninhabited parts of our coasts lives little beast whose babyhood is one of the strangest we know The largest tribes of these ami mals live far away to the North. and they are much more numerous in the Pacific than in the Atlantic Ocean.
 It is so cold and wet in his native land that this creature wears two coats of fur to keep warm, and it is so un- 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-a very important youngster, because the coat he wears is so desired by ladies to put on their own backs that it becomes very valuable. It is seal-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 small white spot behind each forearm. His head is pretty, as are the heads of all seals, and he has beautiful, large, dark-blue eyes, with long lashes. His forefippers, broad, finlike looking things, are extremely useful. On them he walks, taking two short, mincing steps, then bringing up with a jerk his body, which rests on the heels of his hindfippers. With these also he swims. His hindflippers, however, are the strangest members one can imag- inc. They are long and thin, or fiat, as Prof Elliott says, like black kid glove pressed fiat and wrinkled. The long fingers, turned far out on each side, flap about in 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 weak ''blaat," like that of a 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 '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 hitches 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 filled with little seals, hundreds of thousands of them, almost as thick as grains of sands on the shore. Many are lying around in every possible position. Some of them are flat on their backs, with hindfiippers drawn up to the chin and the foretiip- pers crossed on the breast; others lie flat on the stomach, with hindfiippers 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. 70
 Most of these babies sleep in a rest less, ierky, nervous way, as if they had bad dreams. Many will be seen play ing with each other, loping over the ground uneaslly, day and night alike, or rolling over and over in good-na- tured frolic; for these amiable little beasts are never jll-natVred. The