Excerpt from The Seals, Sea-Lions, and Sea Otter of the Pacific Coast: Descriptions, Life History Notes, Photographs and Drawings The adult male is about 4-1/ 2 feet in length and weighs up to 85 pounds; the female 4 feet and 55 pounds; the newborn young 16 to 22 inches and 3 to 5 pounds. The dark brown fur of the sea otter is 1 to 1-1/ 2 inches long with scattered guard hairs. In the adult these hairs are often black' or silver. The face is light in color, and is flatter than that of any seal. Sea otters are gregarious, and a group of a hundred or more may remain together for a long time, resting or playing near some favorite kelp bed. When the weather is mild the animals spend most of their time in the water but during storms they take refuge among the rocks along the beach. The sea otter walks clumsily on land and early fur hunters took advantage of this fact to hunt them with clubs at favorite hauling-out places in stormy weather. The large, flat molar teeth of the sea otter are distinctive, differ ing greatly from the sharply pointed molars of seals and sea-lions. Many sea otters are exceptionally tractable and will take food from the hand within a few minutes after capture. Such animals seem almost oblivious to human presence. Vocal sounds vary from the harsh kitten-like mewing of the pup to the grunts, growls, and high pitched shrieks of the adults. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.