I drew Conseil's attention to the considerable growth
of the cerebral lobes found in these intelligent cetaceans.
No mammal except man has more abundant cerebral matter.
Accordingly, seals are quite capable of being educated;
they make good pets, and together with certain other naturalists,
I think these animals can be properly trained to perform yeoman
service as hunting dogs for fishermen.
Most of these seals were sleeping on the rocks or the sand.
Among those properly termed seals--which have no external ears,
unlike sea lions whose ears protrude--I observed several varieties
of the species stenorhynchus, three meters long, with white hair,
bulldog heads, and armed with ten teeth in each jaw: four incisors
in both the upper and lower, plus two big canines shaped like the
fleur-de-lis. Among them slithered some sea elephants, a type of seal
with a short, flexible trunk; these are the giants of the species,
with a circumference of twenty feet and a length of ten meters.
They didn't move as we approached.
"Are these animals dangerous?" Conseil asked me.
"Only if they're attacked," I replied. "But when these giant seals
defend their little ones, their fury is dreadful, and it isn't rare
for them to smash a fisherman's longboat to bits.
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