OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
When I first returned, in 1873, from the Seal Islands, those authors, whose conclusions were accepted prior to my studies there, had agreed in declaring that the sea-lion, so common off the port of San Francisco, was the same animal also common in Alaska, and the Pribylov Islands in especial; but my drawings from life, and studies, quickly pointed out the error, for it was seen that the creature most familiar to the Californians was an entirely different animal from my subject of study on the Seal Islands.  In other words, while scattered examples of the Eumetopias were, and are, unquestionably about and off the harbor of San Francisco, yet nine tenths of the sea-lions there observed were a different animal-they were the Zalophus californianus. This Zalophus is not much more than half the size of Eumetopias, relatively; it has the large, round, soft eye of the fur-seal, and the more attenuated Newfoundland-dog-like muzzle; and it never roars, but breaks out incessantly with a honk, honk, honking bark, or howl.
No example of Zalophus has ever been observed in the waters of Bering Sea, nor do I believe that it goes northward of Cape Flattery, or really much above Mendocino, Cal.
According to the natives of St. George, some sixty or seventy years ago the Eumetopias held almost exclusive possession of that island being there in' great numbers, some two or three hundred
regular or direct course of travel up or down the northwest coast. They are principally seen in the open sea, eight or ten miles from land, outside the heads of the Straits of Fuca, and from there as far north as Dixon Sound. During May and June they are aggregated in greatest numbers here, though examples are reported the whole year around. The onlyfur-seal which I saw, or was noted by the crew of the Reliance, in her cruise, June 1st to 9th, from Port Townsend to Sitka, was a solitary " holluschak " that we disturbed at sea well out from the lower end of Queen Charlotte's Islands; then, from Sitka to Kadiak, we saw nothing of the fur-seal until we hauled off from Point Greville, and coming down to Ookamok Islet, a squad of agile "holluschickie" suddenly appeared among a school of humpback whales, sporting in the most extravagant manner around, under, and even leaping over the wholly indifferent cetacea. From this eastern extremity of Kadiak Island clear up to the Pribylov group we daily saw them here and there- in small bands, or also as lonely voyageurs, all headed for one goal. We were badly outsailed by them; indeed, the chorus of a favorite "South Sea pirate's" song, as incessantly sung on the cutter's "'tween decks," seemed to have special adaptation to them:
' "For they bore down from the wind'wiard,
A ilin' seven knots to our fonr'n."
AM_~~~~4iY A~.