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.