Now he might make quite sure of his prize if he would be content with one, but he wants several; and the next young mother swimming up calls off his attention, and while he is courting her his neighbour behind tries to carry his first wife away, lifting her by the back of the neck as a cat does a kitten. Then often a terrible battle begins, and the poor mothers are pulled hither and thither till one male seal secures her, and then the whole thing begins again. This constant fighting and lovemaking go on for several days till all the sea lions have wives--those on the shore many, those behind perhaps very few. Then all settle down quietly, the little sea lions are born, bleating like young lambs, and family life begins. But the peace does not last long, for no sooner are mothers able to leave their little ones than the old contest begins again, and happy the father who can keep his wives together through a whole season! And now comes the most remarkable point. As a rule, seals are immense eaters, and they become very fat. But from the time that the fathers land upon the rocks till they go back to the water after about two months, they have never been known to leave their position to take food, so busy are they defending their wives. And when the two months are over, during which the little ones have been trying their strength in the waves and learning to swim, the fathers, which have grown thin and meagre, having used up all their fat, swim away and do not come back. The mothers, however, with the children, and those young bachelors, which have not yet taken wives, remain on the islands sporting and enjoying themselves till autumn, when they, too, start off for the open sea till spring comes round again. Such is the history of the eared seals. And now that we have studied their form, and seen that their skeleton is like that of other animals, though their arms and legs are disguised as flippers, we shall understand our own home seals better; for the chief difference between them and the higher seals is merely that their front legs are much shorter, and that their hind legs are turned back so as to lie in a line with the body (see Fig. 81), while they are closely bound to the tail down right as far as the heel, so that they cannot throw their hind flippers forward nor use them in walking. Thus they have become still more completely aquatic animals, using their hind legs entirely in swimming, when they serve as great oars, working something like the screw of a steamer. The consequence is that they are terribly awkward on land, though they get along very fast by jerking their body forward, or sometimes by dragging themselves by their front flippers.