Late in October the seals began to leave St. Paul 's for the deep sea , by families and tribes , and there was no more fighting over the nurseries , and the holluschickie played anywhere they liked . `` Next year , '' said Matkah to Kotick , `` you will be a holluschickie ; but this year you must learn how to catch fish . '' They set out together across the Pacific , and Matkah showed Kotick how to sleep on his back with his flippers tucked down by his side and his little nose just out of the water . No cradle is so comfortable as the long , rocking swell of the Pacific . When Kotick felt his skin tingle all over , Matkah told him he was learning the `` feel of the water , '' and that tingly , prickly feelings meant bad weather coming , and he must swim hard and get away . `` In a little time , '' she said , `` you 'll know where to swim to , but just now we 'll follow Sea Pig , the Porpoise , for he is very wise . '' A school of porpoises were ducking and tearing through the water , and little Kotick followed them as fast as he could . `` How do you know where to go to ? '' he panted . The leader of the school rolled his white eye and ducked under . `` My tail tingles , youngster , '' he said . `` That means there 's a gale behind me . Come along ! When you 're south of the Sticky Water -LSB- he meant the Equator -RSB- and your tail tingles , that means there 's a gale in front of you and you must head north . Come along ! The water feels bad here . '' This was one of very many things that Kotick learned , and he was always learning . Matkah taught him to follow the cod and the halibut along the under-sea banks and wrench the rockling out of his hole among the weeds ; how to skirt the wrecks lying a hundred fathoms below water and dart like a rifle bullet in at one porthole and out at another as the fishes ran ; how to dance on the top of the waves when the lightning was racing all over the sky , and wave his flipper politely to the stumpy-tailed Albatross and the Man-of-war Hawk as they went down the wind ; how to jump three or four feet clear of the water like a dolphin , flippers close to the side and tail curved ; to leave the flying fish alone because they are all bony ; to take the shoulder-piece out of a cod at full speed ten fathoms deep , and never to stop and look at a boat or a ship , but particularly a row-boat . At the end of six months what Kotick did not know about deep-sea fishing was not worth the knowing . And all that time he never set flipper on dry ground .
One day , however , as he was lying half asleep in the warm water somewhere off the Island of Juan Fernandez , he felt faint and lazy all XXXXX , just as human people do when the spring is in their legs , and he remembered the good firm beaches of Novastoshnah seven thousand miles away , the games his companions played , the smell of the seaweed , the seal roar , and the fighting .
At In about as by for on over through under