>>5025177
"If they have the luck to escape, they begin, as soon as they are in the water, to mock their pursuers in such a manner that one cannot look on without particular pleasure. Now they stand upright in the water like a man and jump up and down with the waves and sometimes hold the forefoot above the eyes as if they wanted to scrutinize you closely in the sun; now they throw themselves on their backs and rub their bellies and pudenda as do monkeys; then they toss the young ones in the air and catch them again, etc.

Altogether a beautiful and pleasing animal, cunning and amusing in its habits, and at the same time ingratiating and amorous. They prefer to lie together in families, the male with its mate, the half-grown young and the very young sucklings all together. . . . Their love for their young is so intense that they expose themselves to the most manifest danger of death. When taken away from them, they cry bitterly, like a small child, and grieve so much that, as we have observed from rather authentic cases, after ten to fourteen days they grow as lean as a skeleton, become sick and feeble, and will not leave the shore."
-Georg Steller