The romance of the animal world

by Edmund Selous

As has been mentioned before, incidentally, the beaver belongs to the order of rodents or gnawing animals, of which our most familiar examples are the rat and the mouse. He is the second largest animal of the order, the first being the great capybara of South America, which creature weighs as much as 90 or even 100 lbs. The beavers, when full grown, may weigh as much as 50, but it is rare for one to attain this size. Though usually of a reddish brown, black beavers are sometimes met with, and white ones, though extremely rare, are not absolutely unknown. Traherne in his Journey to the Northern Ocean says: “In the course of twenty years’ experience in the countries about Hudson’s Bay, though I have travelled six hundred miles to the west of the sea-coast, I never saw but one white beaver-skin, and it had many reddish and brown hairs along the ridge of the back. The sides and the belly were of a glossy, silvery white.” Prince Maximilian, too, who also travelled in North America, says that he “saw one beautifully spotted with white,” and that “yellowish white and pure white ones are not unfrequently caught on the Yellowstone.” This, however, was a long time ago. Not only white beavers, but brown ones too are getting rare now.

Beavers are nocturnal, so that it is not so easy to see them working at their dams and lodges as it might otherwise be. However, it would not be very easy, even if they worked in the day, for persecution has made them extremely shy and wary, and perhaps has even had something to do with their habits in this respect. On land the beaver is somewhat awkward, and not at all fast, so that, though he is able to gallop, an ordinary dog could soon run him down. The water is his more natural element, and here he is easy and graceful. His sight, at least in the daytime, is not very good, but his smell and his hearing are most acute. Upon the latter sense he relies so much that he will often choose out some little hillock or rising piece of ground, where he will sit up on his hind legs like a sentinel, listening attentively. Then, says Mr. Morgan, his best biographer, “he will retire, but only to return at intervals, and repeat the observation until satisfied whether or not danger is near.” With this interesting trait we will take our leave of this most interesting and badly treated animal.

CHAPTER XVII

SEALS AND THEIR WAYS—BREEDING HABITS OF THE SEA-BEAR—SEA-ELEPHANTS—THE WALRUS AND THE POLAR BEAR—MATERNAL AFFECTION UTILISED—A WINTER SLEEP IN A SNOW-HOUSE—A DANGEROUS INTRUSION—BREAKFAST WITH AN ALLIGATOR—THE CROCODILE AND THE TROCHILUS.

If the beaver has been to some extent structurally modified in relation to its water-loving habits, we have in the seals a group of marine carnivorous animals whose ancestors, as we plainly see, must at one time have been terrestrial, but whose limbs and bodies have become almost entirely adapted for an aquatic existence, and who are never found far from the vicinity of the water. They lie, however, on the rocks or ice to rest, and at certain seasons of the year repair to remote, but, unfortunately, not inaccessible islands, for the purpose of bringing forth their young. Seals are most numerous in the arctic and antarctic regions, and to render them impervious to the great cold of these latitudes their bodies are covered with a thick, dense fur, which, as with the beaver, is of two kinds, forming an upper and an under coating. The under fur of some species is very much sought after, and to obtain it, vast multitudes of these poor animals are, every year, slaughtered under circumstances of great barbarity. As the value of sealskin is far more artificial than real, inasmuch as there are few ladies who could not be quite warm enough without wearing it, it is to be hoped that as they become aware that almost every jacket represents a seal that has been skinned alive, they will cease to make these cruel purchases, and thus save millions of innocent and interesting creatures from perishing off the face of the earth.

These fur-bearing seals—or sea-bears as they are called—are polygamous, and their breeding habits when assembled on their far-off island nurseries are very curious and interesting. The male sea-bears—or bulls as they are called—are very much larger than the females—in fact, they weigh almost six times as much. They are, therefore, able to seize them in their teeth, and lift them about almost as easily as a cat does its kittens, and each bull gets for himself, in this way, as many females or cows as he can, and guards them on a certain spot of ground, which he looks upon as his own, and from which he never stirs. If he were to stir from it he would be attacked by some of the bulls round about, into whose territory he would have to intrude—for they are all packed very closely together. Each bull does his best to keep his harem of cows to himself, but they all try to steal from each other’s harems, and thus fights between the bulls are continually taking place. They bite fiercely at one another, and the whole air is full of the loud, harsh roarings which they utter. Sometimes two males will each seize hold of the same female, and then they both pull and tug at her, until sometimes—as neither will relax his hold—the poor animal is almost torn in half. The bulls fight most on first landing on the island, and before the harems have been got together by them. Afterwards things grow quieter, but each bull is continually occupied in guarding his harem.

One of the most interesting accounts of the breeding habits of the fur-seal is given by a Mr. Elliott, who spent a long time at their breeding stations, off the northern coasts of Alaska. He says: “It appears to be a well-understood principle among the able-bodied bulls that each one shall remain undisturbed on his ground, which is, usually, about ten feet square, provided he is strong enough to hold it against all comers; for the crowding in of fresh bulls often causes the removal of many of those who, though equally able-bodied, at first, have exhausted themselves by fighting earlier, and are driven, by the fresher animals, back farther and higher up on the rookery” (“rookeries” is the name given to these seal-breeding stations, though it does not appear to me to be a very good one). “Some of these bulls,” continues Mr. Elliott, “show wonderful strength and courage. I have marked one veteran who was among the first to take up his position, and that on the water-line, where, at least, fifty or sixty desperate battles were fought victoriously by him with nearly as many different seals, who coveted his position, and when the fighting season was over, I saw him covered with scars and gashes, an eye gouged out, but lording it bravely over his harem of fifteen or twenty cows, all huddled together on the same spot he had first chosen.”

As to the fighting itself, Mr. Elliott says it “is mostly or entirely done with the mouth, the opponents seizing each other with the teeth, and clenching the jaws. Nothing but sheer strength can shake them loose, and that effort almost always leaves an ugly wound, the sharp canines tearing out deep gutters in the skin and blubber, or shredding the flippers into ribbon-strips. They usually approach each other with averted heads and a great many false passes, before either one or the other takes the initiative by gripping; their heads are darted out and back as quick as a flash; their hoarse roaring and shrill, piping whistle never ceases, whilst their fat bodies writhe and swell with exertion and rage, fur flying in air and blood streaming down—all combined make a picture fierce and savage enough, and, from its great novelty, exceedingly strange at first sight.” Sooner or later one of the two combatants proves stronger than the other, and when this becomes sufficiently apparent, the weaker of the two withdraws. Instead of pursuing him, as might have been expected, the victorious bull stays where he was, fans himself with one of his hind flippers, as though so much exertion had made him hot, and, with a satisfied chuckle, seems to rejoice in his victory.

An older writer who visited the islands more than 170 years ago, and who calls the sea-bears sea-cats, says: “When two of them only fight, the battle lasts frequently for an hour. Sometimes they rest awhile, lying by one another; then both rise at once, and renew the engagement. They fight with their heads erect, and turn them aside from one another’s stroke. So long as their strength is equal, they fight with their fore paws; but when one of them becomes weak, the other seizes him with his teeth, and throws him upon the ground. When the lookers-on see this, they come to the assistance of the vanquished. The wounds they make with their teeth are as deep as those made with a sabre; and in the month of July you will hardly see one of them that has not some wound upon him. After the end of the battle they throw themselves into the water to wash their bodies.” This account differs in some particulars from that of Mr. Elliott, who says nothing about the seals fighting with their flippers or entering the water afterwards. The latter hardly seems likely, as the females would be then left unguarded; but perhaps, the actions of the seals differ a little, according as it is early or late in the season. This latter informant, who was a Russian, tells us that the females who may be present at such conflicts always follow the victor. At the time when he lived, these poor sea-bears were not persecuted in the way they are now. People hardly ever went to their breeding islands then. It is pleasanter to think of these strange, fierce battles raging amidst ice and snow, in the far-off lonely regions of the north, without anyone to see or interfere with them, than amidst human surroundings of not at all a pleasant character—for the men who skin the seals alive for ladies are amongst the most brutal and debased of mankind. There is always more of the romance of natural history when animals are not interfered with.