With an exception of the pups, the fur-seal seems to have very little rest, awake or sleeping. Perpetual motion is well-nigh incarnate with its being. I naturally enough, when beginning my investigation of these seal-rookeries, expected to find the animals subdued at night, or early morning, on those breeding grounds; but a few consecutive nocturnal watches satisfied me that the family organization and noise was as active at one time as at another, throughout the whole twenty-four hours. If, however, the day preceding had chanced to be abnormally warm, I never failed then to find the rookeries much more noisy and active during the night than they were by daylight. The seals, as a rule, come and go to and from the sea, fight, roar, and vocalize as much during midnight moments as they do at noonday times. An aged native endeavored to satisfy me that the “seecatchie” could see much better by twilight and night than by daylight. I am not prepared to prove to the contrary, but I think that the fact of his not being able to see so well himself at that hour of darkness was a true cause of most of his belief in the improved nocturnal vision of the seals.[119] As I have said before, the females, soon after landing, are delivered of their young. Immediately after the birth of the pup (twins are rare, if ever) the little creature finds its voice—a weak, husky blaat—and begins to paddle about with its eyes wide open from the start, in a confused sort of way for a few minutes, until the mother turns round to notice her offspring and give it attention, and still later, to suckle it; and for this purpose she is supplied with four small, brown nipples, almost wholly concealed in the fur, and which are placed about eight inches apart, lengthwise with the body, on the abdomen, between the fore and hind flippers, with about four inches of space between them transversely. These nipples are seldom visible, and then faintly seen through the hair and fur. The milk is abundant, rich, and creamy. The pups nurse very heartily, almost gorging themselves; so much so, that they often have to yield up the excess of what they have taken down, mewling and puking in a most orthodox manner. The pup at birth, and for the next three months, is of a jet-black color, hair and flippers, save a tiny white patch just back of each forearm. It weighs from three to four pounds, and is twelve to fourteen inches long. It does not seem to nurse more than once every two or three days; but in this I am very likely mistaken, for it may have received attention from its mother in the night, or other times in the day when I was unable to keep up my watch over the individual which I had marked for this supervision.