42 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



following heads, namely : (1) The fur seal, CaUorhinus ursinvs, the 

 "kautickie" of the Russians; (2) the sea lion, Eumetopias sieheri, 

 the "seevitchie" of the Russians; (3) the hair seal, Phoca vitulina, 

 the ' ' nearhpahsky " of the Russians ; (4) the walrus, Odoh(.mms obesus, 

 the "morsjee" of the Russians. 



The hair seal. — The above short schedule embraces the titles of 

 all the pinnipeds found in, on, and around the island grouj). Of this 

 list the hair seal is the animal which has done so much to found that 

 erroneous, joopular, and scientific opinion as to what a fur seal appears 

 like. Phoca vitulina has in this manner given to the people of the 

 world a false idea of its relatives. It is so commonly distributed all 

 over the littoral salt waters of the earth, seen in the harbors of nearly 

 every marine port, or basking along the loneliest and least inhabited 

 of desolate coasts far to the north, that everybody has noticed it, if 

 not in life, then in its stuffed skins at the museums, sometimes very 

 grotesquely stuffed. This coi^y, set everywhere before the eye of the 

 naturalist, has rendered it so difficult for him to correctly discrimi- 

 nate between the Phocidre and the Otariidce, that the synoujnny of 

 the Pinnipedia has been expanded until it is replete Avith meaningless 

 description and surmise. 



Although the hair seal belongs to the great group of pinnipeds, yet 

 it does not have even a generic affinity with those seals with which it 

 has been so persistently grouped, namely, the fur seal and the sea lion. 

 It no more resembles them than does the raccoon the black or grizzly 

 bear. 



I shall not enter into a detailed description of this seal; it is wholly 

 superfluous, for excellent, and, I believe, trustworthy accounts have 

 been repeatedly published by writers ^ who have treated of the subject 

 as it was spread before their eyes on the coasts of Labrador, New- 

 foundland, and Greenland, to say nothing of the researches and notes 

 made by European scientists. It differs completely in shape and 

 habit from its congeners on these islands. Here, where I have studied 

 its biology, it seldom comes up from the water more than a few rods 

 at the farthest, generally hauling and resting at the margin of the 

 surf wash. It takes up no position on land to hold and protect a 

 family or harem, preferring the detached water- worn rocks, especially 

 those on the lonely north shore of St. Paul, although I have seen it 

 resting at Gorbotch, near the sea margin of the great seal rookery of 

 that name, on the Reef Point of St. Paul, its cylindrical, supine gray 

 and white body marked in strong contrast with the erect black and 

 ocher-colored forms of the CaUoi-Jiinus which swarmed around about 

 it. On such small spots of rock, wet and isolated from the mainland, 

 and in secluded places on the north shore, the "nearhj)ali" brings 

 forth its young, a single pup, perfectly white, covered with long woolly 

 hair, and weighing from 3 to 7 j)ounds. This puj) grows rapidly, and 

 after the lapse of four or five months it tips the scales at 50 pounds. 

 By that time it has shed its infant coat and donned the adult soft steel- 

 gray hair over the head, limbs, and abdomen, with the back most 

 richly mottled and bari*ed lengthwise by dark-brown and brown-black 

 streaks and blotches, suffused at their edges into the light steel-gray 

 ground of the body. When tliey appear in the spring following, this 

 bright gray tone to their color has ripened into a dingy ocher and the 

 mottling spread well over the head and down on the upper side or 



'A very complete resume has been given by Allen, Hist. North American Pinni- 

 peds, 1880. 



