The San Francisco call., 1899-04-30

are no longer clumsy In the water.
There is enormous power in the mus
cles of their flippers and tails and this
and the build of their 1.-THE bodies
makes them wonderfully dextrous in
the boiling surf by the Jagged rocks
they climb and wonderfully dextrous
and swift in Overtaking the speedlest
fish of the sea they swim.
Their principal food is fish, but they
also feed on mOlluSkS CTustaCeanS and
sea birds. An observant writer for The
Call, who visited the roOkeries at New
Years Point, on the coast of San Ma
teo County, in 1897 during the breeding
season. saw great school of fish pass
through a channel between two of the
rocky islands the sea lions populated.
The lions plunged from the rocks by
hundreds and crowded each other at
the feast. They were quickly filled,
and then they followed their habit of
taking a bite out Of each fish they
caught, and later the water was COW
cred with dead floating fish.
The family life of the sea lion is es-
pecially interesting, and it IS this fam
lily life that is planned to be invaded
with powder, ball and steel 1t is not
so fine and systematic on the breeding
grounds as that of the fur seal, but it
is quite similar. The breeding season
opens with the landing at the breeding
grounds of the strongest males. For
three weeks or 50 they simply pre-
empt territory and fight.
The battles are terribly ferocious, and
even the victor may have much hide
torn into strips and an eye torn out.
The defeated ones and the bachelors"
GO elsewhere. DR.. Jordan says it is
mainly these that populate Seal Rocks.
The breeding season begins in May
and the masters of the harems are
about TO install themselves now. These
males go without food for month or
more living on their own fat. Then the
females arrive, and during June and
July the young are born and nursed
and taught to swim. A striking degree
of maternal care and love is exhibited
and even the males help teach the
young. The mothers go out after food.
nurse their young and early lead them
into the surf The mother Will hold
its pups nose above water in its first
lessons at swimming, will play with
it in the water, taking it now and then
by the nape of the neck and throwing
it, to carefully catch it when 1t alights,
and will go away from the surf and
float on the surface with its pup lying
on its breast.
If the sea lion was worth hunting
there would be no call for official ex-
termination. He was worth hunting
once years ago. The white man began
it when he first got here. The prizes
were the coarse hides and the fat for
oil for domestic markets and the
whiskers and some other small parts
of the carcass for the Chinese market.
They were slain by the thousands UP
to ten or fifteen years ago all along the
coast, from Lower California north.
Then the market for the hides and oil
passed away and the Whlskers, etc,
for the Chinese market would not pay
for the trouble and expense of killing
them. This and the legal restrictions
have given the sea lion chance. The
Governments prohibitions were not to
protect the sea lion. The regulation
was made because the hunters of sea
lions, gulls' eggs. etc, at the Farallones
and on other reservations got up such
bloody wars and stole, wrecked or in
terfered with SO much Government
property and so much Government
business that the thing was a nuisance
to be abated. 1t is this fact that gives
President Vogelsang confidence that
the request of State officers will be
granted.
If it is a romantic and picturesque
campaign will be promptly inaugur-
ated The sea lions will be greatly les
sened but not eXterminated. President
Jordan indorses the campaign and says
that if ninety of every hundred
males were killed the race would still
be all right and there would be many
fish saved. It is said that the war will
be made on the males. Probably it
will, but the purpose is to reduce the
herds during the breeding season, and
it is possible that some mothers and
pups will accidentally suffer.
President Jordan takes great interest
in the matter and will visit the rook-
cries while the war Is Yaged.