om any we
had before observed; but on a nearer approach, they proved to be two
sea-lions, which had been goring each other with their teeth, and
were all covered over with blood. The bashaw, formerly mentioned, who
generally lay surrounded by a seraglio of females, to which no other
male dared approach, had not acquired that envied pre-eminence without
many bloody contests, of which the marks remained in numerous scars in
every part of his body.

We killed many of these animals for food, particularly for their
hearts and tongues, which we esteemed exceeding good eating, and
preferable even to those of bullocks. In general there was no
difficulty in killing them, as they are incapable either of flight or
resistance, their motion being the most unwieldy that can be imagined,
and all the time they are in motion, their blubber is agitated
in large waves under the skin. One day, a sailor being carelessly
employed in skinning a young sea-lion, the female from whom he had
taken it, came upon him unperceived, and getting his head into her
mouth, scored his skull in notches with her teeth in many places,
and wounded him so desperately that he died in a few days, though all
possible care was taken of him.[3]

[Footnote 3: There are two species of the seal tribe which have
received the name of sea-lion; the phoca leonina, or bottle-nosed
seal, which is that of the text; and the phoca jubata, or maned seal,
which is the sea-lion of some other writers. These two species are
remarkably distinguishable from each other, especially the moles: The
bottle-nosed seal having a trunk, snout, or long projection, on the
upper jaw; while the male of the maned seal has his neck covered
with a long flowing mane. The latter is also much larger, the males
sometimes reaching twenty-five feet in length, and weighing fifteen
or sixteen hundred weight. Their colour is reddish, and their voice
resembles the bellowing of bulls. The former are chiefly found in the
Southern Pacific; while the latter frequent the northern parts of the
same ocean.--E.]

These are the principal animals which we found upon the island of
Juan Fernandez. We saw very few birds, and these were chiefly hawks,
blackbirds, owls, and hummingbirds. We saw not the _paradela_,[4]
which burrows in the ground, and which former writers mention to be
found here; but as we often met with their holes, we supposed that the
wild dogs had destroyed them, as they have almost done the cats; for