Phocine

The bargain was soon made, and Gioga equipped herself in her phocine garb, but when the Shetlander gazed on the stormy sea he was to ride through, his courage nearly failed him, and he begged of the old lady to hare the kindness to allow him to cut a few holes in her shoulders and flanks, that he might obtain a better fastening for his hands between the skin and the flesh.

He telegraphed to the whaling ports of New England, and sent messages to San Francisco and Alaska, to know if a group of sea lions and other specimens of the phocine tribe could be secured.

[…] she had already yanked out of me the coveted section [of the newspaper] and retreated to her mat near her phocine mamma.

She walked over towards me with an odd elegance, big strides, like a champion girl swimmer, say; muscled but lean, with a phocine grace.

Phocines anchor their hands by flexing their fingers, digging them into the substrate, and then pulling their body forward by elbow and shoulder flexion.