MODE OF CAPTURE. 375 



unfit, under age, &c., permitting them to escape and return to 

 the water as soon as the marked ones are knocked down ; the 

 natives then drag the slain out from the heap in which they 

 have fallen, and spread the bodies out over the ground just free 

 from touching one another so that they will not be hastened in 

 'heating' or blasting, finishing the work of death by thrusting 

 into the chest of each stunned and senseless seal a long, sharp 

 knife, which touches the vitals and bleeds it thoroughly ; and 

 if a cool day, another i pod ' is started out and disposed of in 

 the same way, and so on until a thousand or two are laid out, or 

 the drove is finished; then they turn to and skin; but if it is a 

 warm day, every 'pod* is skinned as soon as it is knocked down. 



" This work of killing as well as skinning is performed very 

 rapidly ; for example, forty-five men or natives on Saint Paul's 

 during June and July, 1872, in less than four working- weeks 

 drove, killed, skinned, and salted the pelts of 72,000 seals. 



"The labor of skinning is exceedingly severe, and is trying 

 to an expert, requiring long practice before the muscles of the 

 back and thighs are so developed as to permit a man to bend 

 down to and finish well a fair day's work. 



"The body of the seal, preparatory to skinning, is rolled over 

 or put upon its back, and the native makes a single swift cut 

 through the skin down along the neck, chest, and belly, from 

 the lower jaw to the root of the tail, using for this purpose a 

 large, sharp knife. The fore and hind nippers are then succes- 

 sively lifted, and a sweeping circular incision is made through 

 the skin on them just at the point where the body-fur eudsj 

 then, seizing a flap of the hide on either one side or the other of 

 the abdomen, the man proceeds to rapidly cut the skin clean 

 and free from the body and blubber, which he rolls over and 

 out from the skin by hauling up on it as he advances with his 

 work, standing all the time stooping over the carcass so that 

 his hands are but slightly above it or the ground. This opera- 

 tion of skinning a fair-sized seal takes the best men only a min- 

 ute and a half, but the average time on the ground is about 

 four minutes. 



"Nothing is left of the skin upon the carcass save a small patch 

 of each upper lip, on which the coarse mustache grows, the skin 

 on the tip of the lower jaw, the insignificant tail, together with 

 the bare hide of the flippers. 



" The blubber of the fur-seal is of a faint yellowish white, and 

 lies entirely between the skin and the flesh, none being depos- 



