THE FUR SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 363 



7. THE MANNER OF TAKING THE SEALS. 



THE MANNER IN WHICH THE SEALS ARE TAKEN. By reference to the habits of the fur-seal, 

 which I have discussed elsewhere, it is now plain and beyond doubt that two-thirds of all the males 

 which are born, and they are equal in numbers to the females born, are never permitted by the 

 remaining third, strongest by natural selection, to land upon the same breeding ground with the 

 females, which always herd thereupon en masse. Hence this great band of "bachelor" seals, or 

 (i hollusch ickie," so fitly termed, when it visits the island is obliged to live apart entirely sometimes, 

 and some places, miles away from the rookeries ; and in this admirably perfect method of nature 

 are those seals which can be properly killed without injury to the rookeries, selected and held aside 

 by their own volition, so that the natives can visit and take them, as they would so many hogs, 

 without disturbing, in the least degree, the utter peace and entire quiet of the breeding grounds, 

 where the stock is perpetuated. 



The manner in which the natives capture and drive the " holluschickie" up from the hauling 

 grounds to the slaughter-fields near the two villages of Saint Paul and Saint George, and elsewhere 

 on the islands, cannot be improved upon. The routine which they follow is most satisfactory ; it is 

 in this way : At the beginning of every sealing season, that is, during May and June, large bodies 

 of the jouug "bachelor" seals do not haul up on land very far from the water a few rods at, the 

 most and, when these first arrivals are sought after, the natives, in capturing them, are obliged 

 to approach slyly and run quickly between the dozing seals and the surf, before they can take 

 alarm and bolt into the sea ; thus, in this way a dozen Aleuts, running down the sand beach of 

 English Bay, in the early morning of some June day, will turn back from the water thousands of 

 seals, just as the mold-board of a plow lays over and back a furrow of earth. When the sleeping 

 seals are first startled, they arise, and, seeing men between them and the water, immediately turn, 

 lope, and scramble rapidly back up and over the land ; the natives then leisurely walk on the 

 flanks and in the rear of the drove thus secured, directing and driving them over to the killing 

 grounds, close by the village.* 



PROGRESSION OF A SEAL-DRIVE. A drove of seals on hard or firm grassy ground, in cool and 

 moist weather, may be driven with safety at the rate of half a mile an hour ; they can be urged 

 along, with the expenditure of a great many lives, however, at the speed of a mile or a mile and 

 a quarter per hour ; but this is highly injurious, and it is seldom ever done. An old bull seal, fat 

 and unwieldy, cannot travel with the younger ones, though it can lope or gallop as it starts over 

 the ground as fast as an ordinary man can run, over 100 yards ; but then it fails utterly, falls to the 

 earth supine, entirely exhausted, hot, and gasping for breath. 



* The task of getting up early in the morning, and going out to the several hauling grounds, closely adjacent, is 

 really all there is of the labor involved in securing the number of seals required for the day's work on the killing 

 gronnds. The two, three, or four natives upon whom, in rotation, this duty is devolved by the order of their chief, 

 rise at first glimpse of dawn, between 1 and 2 o'clock, and hasten over to Lukannon, Tolstoi, or Zoltoi, as the case 

 may be, " walk out" their "hollaschickie," and have them duly on the slaughter field before 6 or 7 o'clock, as a rule, 

 in the morning. In favorable weather the " drive" from Tolstoi consumes two and a half to three hours' time ; from 

 Lnkannon, about two hours, and is often done in an hour and a half ; while Zoltoi is so near by that the time is merely 

 nominal. 



I heard a great deal of talk among the white residents of Saint Paul, when I first landed and the sealing-si-a^on 

 opened, abont the necessity of "resting" the hauling gronnds ; in other words, they said that if the seals were driven 

 in repeated daily rotation from any one of the hanling grounds, that this would so disturb these animals as to prrvcnt 

 their coming to any extent again thereon, during the rest of the season. This theory seemed rational enough to 

 me at the beginning of my investigations, and I was not disposed to question its accuracy ; but siibsequeut observa- 

 tion, directed to this point particularly, satisfied me, and the sealers themselves with whom I was associated, that 

 the driving of the seals had no effect whatever upon the hanling which took place soon or immediately after the field, 

 for the hour, had been swept clean of seals by the drivers. If the weather was favorable for landing, i. ., cool, moist, 

 and foggy, the fresh hauling of the " hollnschickie " would cover the bare grounds again in a very short space of time 



