An older writer who visited the islands more than 170 years ago, and who calls the sea-bears sea-cats, says: “When two of them only fight, the battle lasts frequently for an hour. Sometimes they rest awhile, lying by one another; then both rise at once, and renew the engagement. They fight with their heads erect, and turn them aside from one another’s stroke. So long as their strength is equal, they fight with their fore paws; but when one of them becomes weak, the other seizes him with his teeth, and throws him upon the ground. When the lookers-on see this, they come to the assistance of the vanquished. The wounds they make with their teeth are as deep as those made with a sabre; and in the month of July you will hardly see one of them that has not some wound upon him. After the end of the battle they throw themselves into the water to wash their bodies.” This account differs in some particulars from that of Mr. Elliott, who says nothing about the seals fighting with their flippers or entering the water afterwards. The latter hardly seems likely, as the females would be then left unguarded; but perhaps, the actions of the seals differ a little, according as it is early or late in the season. This latter informant, who was a Russian, tells us that the females who may be present at such conflicts always follow the victor. At the time when he lived, these poor sea-bears were not persecuted in the way they are now. People hardly ever went to their breeding islands then. It is pleasanter to think of these strange, fierce battles raging amidst ice and snow, in the far-off lonely regions of the north, without anyone to see or interfere with them, than amidst human surroundings of not at all a pleasant character—for the men who skin the seals alive for ladies are amongst the most brutal and debased of mankind. There is always more of the romance of natural history when animals are not interfered with.