After the first ten days’ sojourn ashore the female is allowed to go to sea to feed, returning presently to suckle her young. The bull, on the other hand, can enjoy no such privilege. For three long months he must keep watch and ward fasting—at first, in order that he may retain his territory; later, that he may retain his harem. This fast, having regard to the loss of energy and blood which this strenuous period entails, is wonderful; for in the case of all other animals fasts are always associated with absolute rest and sleep. Not so with the Sea-lion; he arrives at the breeding-ground fat and well-liking, he leaves a starved and battered wreck. The foregoing summary of the habits of these most interesting and much persecuted animals is taken from the exhaustive report of Dr. F. A. Lucas and Mr. Charles Townsend. These two distinguished naturalists accompanied the United States contingent of the Fur-seal International Commission despatched in 1896-97 to inquire into the threatened extermination of these animals. Major Barrett Hamilton accompanied the British contingent, and also made a report. And it is curious to note that on some points he is diametrically opposed, not only to the American naturalists, but to all other writers on this theme. He contends, for example, that “nothing could better illustrate the fact that it is the cows, and not the bulls, which have the real control of the harem-system.” He traced the rapid growth of two harems from four or five to as many as eighty cows. And he tells these were completely out of control and free to move about as they wished. “The bulls, in spite of all their bluster, had the flimsiest of nominal dominion, and the cows were always able to, and frequently did, leave the harems daily to dally with the cowless bulls on the outside. Yet ... as long as they chose to sit massed together on the ground which had been appropriated by the two stronger bulls, no weaker rivals could approach to within ten yards of them. The master of the harem had no control over its occupants, but he was absolute lord of the ground on which they sat.” This is certainly curious, but more so is the fact that these females were allowed to return by the “cowless bulls” outside the charmed circle. Later in the season he tells us he witnessed an even better illustration of this singular behaviour. At this time “the division of the cows into harems was a very unequal one, the smaller bull being only able to keep a very few cows, while the larger one claimed the greater part of the rookery. But the cows could pass over to the smaller bull’s ground as often as they liked; and he probably was father to a great many more of the pups born in 1898 than those of the half-dozen cows over whom he claimed control.” In regard to two other bulls in another cart of the island, there came a time when the inequality of the harems reached such a pitch, that the newly-arriving