The average length of a large male sea-lion ranges from six to seven or eight feet, his weight averaging six hundred pounds. The females are of much smaller size than the males, and measure from four and a half to five feet in length; their weight being from one hundred to one hundred and fifty pounds. These animals, as might be expected, grow slowly, and attain their full dimensions the males in six, and the females in four years. The habits of these animals are not only of curious and interesting nature, but evince a decidedly high order of intelligence. The haunts of the sea-lions are, in whalers' parlance, named 'rookeries;' and in the disposition of what may be termed their domestic arrangements, as well as in the regulation of their family and personal matters, these creatures appear to be guided by instincts which, like the social order of the ants and bees, are duly perpetuated, and have become of hereditary character. The sea-lions are migratory in habits, and disappear from the majority of the haunts and breeding-places in winter. The males are few in number as compared with the females or 'cows,' as they are termed; and each male receives under his protection a larger or smaller number of females; the oldest males possessing the largest number of dependants. In the early spring, some old males appear to return first to the haunts and do duty as reconnoitring parties; the advance-guard swimming about for several days, then landing and cautiously investigating the state of the land; their shore-visits being spent in a state of perpetual sniffing, and in the careful examination of their old haunt. About a month or six weeks after the arrival of the advance-guard, and after the inspection of the land has been duly carried out, sure signs of the coming race begin to appear in the form of hundreds of males, who select advantageous positions on the beach, and await the arrival of their partners. Nor is the period of waiting an uneventful one. The best situations on the beach are fought for with eagerness, not to say ferocity. The descriptions given of the combats of the males indicate that they are of the most sanguinary description; frequent mutilations being the results of this fight for a place on the reception-ground.
On the arrival of the females, the younger males appear to do duty as ushers, in marshalling the 'cows' to their places on the rocks and cliffs above the beach; and the work of the selection of mates by the males proceeds apace, until each happy family, consisting of a male with a dozen or fifteen cows, has been duly constituted. The progress of selection and sea-lion courtship is frequently, we regret to say, attended with disastrous consequences to the lady-members of the community. When a male, envious of the choice of his neighbour, sees an opportunity, he does not hesitate to avail himself of the chance, and not only to covet but literally to steal his neighbour's mate. The desired 'cow' is unceremoniously lifted in the mouth of the captor, and transferred with all possible expedition to his own family group. Great is the sorrow of the bereaved male; but woe to both intruder and female should the thief be discovered in the act! A fierce and sanguinary fight ensues, and the hapless, passive, and altogether innocent cause of the combat, may get dreadfully injured while the combat lasts.
The young sea-lions usually appear to be born almost immediately after the parents have landed and been allocated to their respective establishments. One young is produced at a birth; the infant sea-lion being of black colour and attaining the length of a foot. When they are four weeks old, they enter the water, and speedily become expert in swimming and diving; but it is alleged, and on good authority, that occasionally the females encounter refractory offspring, and have to exercise great patience in coaxing unwilling youngsters to enter the sea. The families have settled down to their wonted existence by the beginning of August; and we are informed that during the whole of the period which intervenes between the arrival of the females and the period last mentioned, the males have not only been most assiduous in their attendance upon their families, but that they have also been existing independently of any nutriment. The males exemplify a case of living upon self, and appear to subsist by the reabsorption of their fatty matters; in the same fashion as the bears, which retire fat and well nourished to their winter-quarters, and appear in the succeeding spring in a lean and emaciated condition.
Regarding the sea-lions and their young at present in captivity in the Brighton Aquarium, it is interesting to note the incidents connected with the first 'bath' of baby Otaria. This prodigy in the way of an aquarium specimen, tumbled accidentally into the water of his tank, and apparently caused his mamma much anxiety. It is stated that he plunged voluntarily into the water on a subsequent occasion, and appeared to be perfectly at home in his native element; swimming and diving with all the dexterity of an accomplished professor of the art of natation. Being startled by some sound, the young otaria dived beneath the surface of the water, the mother seizing her progeny by the neck, and swimming ashore with it in her mouth. On the occasion of the writer's visit to the Brighton Aquarium, the mother and young were disporting themselves in the water; the male sitting up in the tank, and giving vent to repeated sounds, resembling exactly the hoarse bark of a dog. We may heartily re-echo the wish, that the happiness and amenity of this interesting family may be disturbed by no untoward accident, if for no other reason that they exist among us as the representatives of a most interesting and now comparatively scarce group of quadrupeds.
It has often been disputed by naturalists whether or not the sea-lions possess a mane. There can be no doubt that the old males of one species at anyrate, the Otaria jubata or Cook's sea-lion, the most common form on the South American coasts, possess a mane on the neck and shoulders. Nine or ten different species of sea-lions are known to zoologists, these species being distinguished from each other by very distinct variations in the form and structure of the skull, in the fur, &c. It must, however, be borne in mind, that the recognition of the exact species to which a sea-lion belongs is frequently a very difficult matter, owing to the differences perceptible in the fur of the two sexes and in the fur of either sex, at different ages.
The complaints of zoologists regarding the ill-regulated and indiscriminate slaughter of the sea-lions are, it is to be feared, as well founded as have been our own repeated remonstrances against the wholesale slaughter of seals. The United States government, however, it is satisfactory to learn, still regulate their sea-lion fisheries at the Pribylov Islands in a methodical manner. Thus the young males alone are killed, and the period during which they are taken extends from June to October; whilst the total number of sea-lions killed annually is limited. In the South Sea Islands, these animals were killed in such numbers that they are now exceedingly scarce; British and Americans alike, slaying the sea-lions without in the slightest degree discriminating between the sexes, or between young and old seals. It is to be hoped, for the sake of science as well as of commerce, that time has taught us wisdom in this respect. We have seen how necessary legislation has become to insure the prosperity of our home-fisheries; and now that the Royal Commissioners have finished their labours in behalf of crabs and lobsters, salmon and herring, it would be well for the public interests if Mr Frank Buckland and his coadjutors were empowered to look after the sea-lion and the seal.
[ANCIENT STREETS AND HOMESTEADS OF ENGLAND.]
With kindly regard for the names, the places, and the landmarks of our forefathers, which may be called the sentimental side of our national stability, are usually, but unfortunately not invariably combined the good sense which improves but does not destroy, and the good taste which recognises the intrinsic beauty of antiquity, its harmony with our history, and the dignity which it lends to the present. Foreigners are always deeply impressed by the 'ancientness' of England, by the maintenance of the old names, and the blending together in our cities of the convenience and luxury of modern life, with the memorials of a past as grand as any country has to boast of, and marked by far less vicissitude.
Among the evidences of the stability of England to which the attention of her own students of her history and that of foreign visitors may most worthily be directed, is the minor monumental history which Mr Alfred Rimmer illustrates, and whose value and interest the Dean of Chester points out in an interesting volume entitled Ancient Streets and Homesteads of England (London: Macmillan & Co.); the history of the old buildings which still remain in the old streets of our old cities, in our villages and in our hamlets.