The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1891-03-11
Our Mons ano Girls.
Some Baby Seals.

| made the other day a call on a
unique household. NY entertainers
were seven young seals, recently cap
tured. believe they are to be trained /:
but at present they are in a purely
natural state, and, to my mind, much
more interesting than they will be after
they have been taught to count, to
shake hands, to play the banjo, etc.
They are kept in pen in which the
tide GIBBS and flows. There is ample
room to swim; and the pen encloses a
portion of a rocky ledge upon which,
at low tide, the seals can come up and
sleep. We climbed over the barrier of
the pen, and sat upon these rocks for
long time, watching the at play. One
only declined to gambol. He lay mo-
tiOnless on the surface of the water,
sending out an occasional mournful lit
tie cry. He was homesick, said the
keeper, for his mother, and he thought
he might let him out, and begged that
he would; for these seals were none of
them more than two months Old,-mere
babies, not yet weaned. Indeed, if
they had not been so young, they would
not have been caught in the net set for
them. The keeper. said the old seals
were wary, kept away themselves from
the nets, and prevented the young
from going near, so far as they could.
He said he had known seal mother to
tear his net in tatters in order to release
her baby. They also follow their young
to the pen, and call them from outside,
while he baby seals reply with plain
tive cries. This they do day after day,
but finally retire discouraged. With the
exception the homesick one, the small
seals seemed happy, and played and
tumbled about, throwing their tlippers
around each other like children.
watched one of them long time as he
swan swiftly to and fro. He came
toward us, swimming upon his back
and under water, turning, as he reached
the ledge, in graceful upward curve
and rising to the surface. AS he swan
off, he would look coyly over his shoul.
der at us, as much as to say, "Didn't |
do that well?" Their eyes are really
beautiful, gentle, full of intelligence.
They have whiskers' like a cat-they
are called " sea-lions," ! believe-and
round, black nostris that shut up
tightly when they go under water.
"They will bite" sa the keeper. Had
it not been for this warning, | should
have met the advances of one sOft-eyed
creature who C awled up the rock to my
very feet, gazing beseechingly at :me.
These babies are SIN Il, two feet long,
perhaps, and roly-poly. Some of them
sat up straight in the water on their
tails. To casual observation, they
would seem to nave three tails; but two
are flippers, which serve as paddles, if
not as rudders. One among them stood
persiste ltly on his head upon the rock
under water, rubbing his head as though
he was scratching it. But the drollest
sight was to see one little fellow sit NJ
the water and scratch his ear or the
side of his head, with his flipper. Ii
was deliciously comic. | think he was
The same who swan so persistently, and
seemed bent upon entertaining us. The
flipper when not spread looks precisely
ike a small hand, and the motion, as
he scratched, was extraordinarily like
that made in combing out one's hair
Some one suggested that it was this ac.
ton on the part of some big seal that
first gave rise TO the notion of the mer-
maid combing out her long locks.
While we sat there, some children came
out in bathing suits, and began to swim
and splash about in the water just out
side the seal pen. The seals at once
left their play, attracted by the noise
crowded up to the side, and looked in
quisitively out between the Stats. Per
haps they took the children for larger
and gayer species of seal. Having sat
isfied their curiosity, they went back tc
their own Wide Awake.