All of the bulls have the power and frequent inclination to utter four distinct calls or notes. This is not the case with the sea-lion, whose voice is confined to a single bass roar, or that of the walrus, which is limited to a dull grunt, or that of the hair-seal, which is almost inaudible. This volubility of the adult male is decidedly characteristic and prominent. He utters a hoarse, resonant roar, loud and long; he gives vent to a low, entirely different gurgling growl; he emits a chuckling, sibilant, piping whistle, of which it is impossible to convey an adequate idea, for it must be heard to be understood, and this spitting or _choo_ sound just mentioned. The cow[114] has but one note—a hollow, prolonged, bla-a-ting call, addressed only to her pup: on all other occasions she is usually silent; it is something strangely like the cry of a calf or an old sheep. She also makes a spitting sound or snort when suddenly disturbed—a kind of cough, as it were. The pups “blaat” also, with little or no variation, their sound being somewhat weaker and hoarser after birth than their mother’s. They, too, comically spit or cough when aroused suddenly from a nap or driven into a corner, opening their little mouths (like young birds in a nest) when at bay, backed up in some crevice or against grassy tussocks. Indeed, so similar is that call of the female to the bleating of sheep that a number of the latter, which the Alaska Commercial Company had brought up from San Francisco to St. George Island during the summer of 1873, were constantly attracted to the rookeries, and were running in among the “holluschickie” so much that they neglected better pasturage on the uplands beyond, and a small boy had to be regularly employed to herd them where they would feed to advantage. These transported _Ovidæ_, though they could not possibly find anything in their eyes suggestive of companionship among the seals, had their ears so charmed by those sheep-like accents of the female pinnipeds as to persuade them in spite of their senses of vision and smell.