Items.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 5082, 18 September 1891, Page 4

Items.

Every spring the seals appear in droves from their unknown winter quarters, and settle down on the Pribylov Islands, some 200 miles away from the mainland of Alaska. The males come first, accompanied. by the young seal pups born during the previous summer, and choose their respective homes on the rocks. The females follow three weeks later—meek little creatures, in steel-grey garb, very different from the big brown male seals, with their fighting propensities. Often one seal possesses 20 wives, and he has a hard task to defend his home and family from his neighl>ors. Indeed, the old seals fight like furies, becoming covered with scars and terrible wounds, and sometimes losing an eye or part of a flipper in the fray. Most of the fighting is done with the mouth. The combatants approach each other with averted heads and sly looks, till suddenly they utter a shrill piping whistle, and engage with their sharp canine teeth, the hair flies and the blood flows amid much furious bellowing. The young bachelors—from one to five years old—herd together in their own quarters at a respectful distance, till they are strong enough to fight for wife and home.

The wonderful accounts given l>y Mr H. M. Stanley about dwarf tribes in Equatoria roused public curiosity as to these diminutive people, and Mr W. Cross, the Liverpool naturalist, at once gave orders to his agents to obtain if possible a good specimen of this peculiar race. After a lengthy search a remarkable female dwarf was procured in Africa, •where she was brought from the native tribe and sent to the Jamaica Exhibition by Mr Cross' agent for show purposes, attracting great attention. When the Exhibition closed the dwarf was brought to England, and on Friday last Mr Cross ■was surprised to receive a telegram from his agent reading—" Come immediately ; dwarf here ; cannot do with this sort of ballast." Mr Cross at once started for London, and took the dwarf safely to Liverpool on Saturday afternoon. She is just 36 inches in height, well developed, jet black complexion, and has a peculiar I monkeyish expression, her nose being almost flat with her face. In Jamaica she was taught to speak English, and now •cmverses freely with all comers. In Jamaica, too, the dwarf was tiught to amoke, and she has developed an alarming partiality for good ciaars. An enterprising Melbourne doctor has for once stolen a march on his American rivals. The practitioner in question has boldly announced in the leading papers that, "In all cases in which his efforts are not crowned with success he will guarantee to pay half the funeral exp«BS«S."