`` Bah ! Only the holluschickie go to Otter Island . If we went there they would say we were afraid . We must preserve appearances , my dear . '' Sea Catch sunk his head proudly between his fat shoulders and pretended to go to sleep for a few minutes , but all the time he was keeping a sharp lookout for a fight . Now that all the seals and their wives were on the land , you could hear their clamor miles out to sea above the loudest gales . At the lowest counting there were over a million seals on the beach -- old seals , mother seals , tiny babies , and holluschickie , fighting , scuffling , bleating , crawling , and playing together -- going down to the sea and coming up from it in gangs and regiments , lying over every foot of ground as far as the eye could reach , and skirmishing about in brigades through the fog . It is nearly always foggy at Novastoshnah , except when the sun comes out and makes everything look all pearly and rainbow-colored for a little while . Kotick , Matkah 's baby , was born in the middle of that confusion , and he was all head and shoulders , with pale , watery blue eyes , as tiny seals must be , but there was something about his coat that made his mother look at him very closely . `` Sea Catch , '' she said , at last , `` our baby 's going to be white ! '' `` Empty clam-shells and dry seaweed ! '' snorted Sea Catch . `` There never has been such a thing in the world as a white seal . '' `` I ca n't help that , '' said Matkah ; `` there 's going to be now . '' And she sang the low , crooning seal song that all the mother seals sing to their babies : You must n't swim till you 're six weeks old , Or your head will be sunk by your heels ; And summer gales and Killer Whales Are bad for baby seals . Are bad for baby seals , dear rat , As bad as bad can be ; But splash and grow strong , And you ca n't be wrong . Child of the Open Sea ! Of course the little fellow did not understand the words at first . He paddled and scrambled about by his mother 's side , and learned to scuffle out of the way when his father was fighting with another seal , and the two rolled and roared up and down the slippery rocks . Matkah used to go to sea to get things to eat , and the baby was fed only once in two days , but then he ate all he could and throve upon it .
The first XXXXX he did was to crawl inland , and there he met tens of thousands of babies of his own age , and they played together like puppies , went to sleep on the clean sand , and played again .
Sea appearances everything fellow middle seal something sun thing wives