From the tongue of rock that overlooked the smiling waters, the baby seal, clinging to his mother’s side, heard the summer song of the sea, mingled pleasantly with the wondering bleating cries of many little babies like himself.
“Take me to the water,” he whispered to his mother.
“Cling round my neck, then,” she replied, lowering her head, and he did as she bade him, as well as his feeble limbs would permit.
“Hold on tightly,” she cried, and cast herself off the rock into the deep water, that plashed and curled and danced round them, as though for very love of seals.
“Soon you will learn to dive,” said Mother Seal, “you will be able to sleep on the water or under it, to catch fine fat fish when you do not want my milk any more. You are born to a beautiful life; so be happy.”
Day after day, mother and son lay side by side for hours on a ledge of rock that Mother Seal’s body had worn smooth; they spent only the hottest hours in the water. Soon the little one learned to face the sea, holding on to one of his mother’s flippers; then he went in quite boldly alone and learned to dive, and saw the fish that lived in the depths, and pursued them clumsily and in fun, for he was not yet weaned.
Only when he was two months old, and had grown quite rapidly, did his mother tell him that he must now learn to feed himself, and by this time it was an easy task, as the plaice and flounders soon found to their cost. They could not hide themselves in the sand sufficiently quickly to escape from his pursuit.
Having finished her maternal duties, Mother Seal changed her coat. The spots that had marked it became very light, and the skin itself assumed a yellow tint that seemed quite like silver at times.
“Is it time to change?” asked the male seals, who had now returned with the young sons and daughters to the maternal haunts. “If it is, we have no time to lose,” and they, too, put on the light summer dress which was, with all who wore it, a symbol of joy and happiness, a tribute to the halcyon days when domestic cares were laid aside, when there was hardly any night, when food was plentiful, and the sun seldom ceased to shine upon warm and tranquil waters.
The seals, scattered now into little groups in every bay and round every islet, enjoyed their idle days to the full. Sometimes they would travel upshore quite a long way, and laze upon the dry sand, the younger and less experienced among them being most addicted to such journeys. Every crag that looked out over the deep water had its noisy tenants, and throughout August there would be a series of dances given by various seal hosts and hostesses, at which the most agile among the visitors would glide through the water in dolphin fashion. They were inclined to be rather jealous of the dolphins.