ALASKA INDUSTEIES. 57 



siTceession from there to where they are themselves; but the cows do 

 not like to be in any outside position. They can not be coaxed out 

 where they are not in close company with their female mates and 

 masses. They lie most quietly and contentedly in the largest harems, 

 and cover the surface of the ground so thickly that there is hardly 

 moving or turning room until the females cease to come from the sea. 

 The inaction on the part of the males in the rear during the breeding 

 season only serves to qualify them to move into the places which are 

 necessarily vacated by those males that are, in the meantime, obliged 

 to leave from virile exhaustion or incipient wounds. All the suri^lus 

 able-bodied males that have not been successful in effecting a landing 

 on the rookeries can not at any one time during tlie season be seen 

 here pn this rear line. Only a jjortion of their number are in sight; 

 the others are either loafing at sea, adjacent, or are hauled out in 

 morose squads between the rookeries on the beaches. 



Courage of the fur seal. — The courage with which the fur seal 

 holds his position as the head and guardian of a family is of the highest 

 order. I have repeatedly tried to drive them from their harem posts, 

 when they were fairly established on their stations, and have always 

 failed, with few exceptions. I might use every stone at my command, 

 making all the noise I could. Finall}^ to put their courage to the 

 fullest test, I have walked up to within 20 feet of an old veteran, 

 toward the extreme end of Tolstoi, who had only 4 cows in charge, 

 and commenced with my double-barreled fowling-piece to pepper him 

 all over with fine mustard-seed shot, being kind enough, in spite of 

 my zeal, not to j)ut out his eyes. His bearing, in spite of tlie noise, 

 smell of jiowder, and painful irritation which the fine shot must have 

 l^roduced, did not change in the least from the usual attitude of deter- 

 mined, plucky defense, which nearly all of the bulls assumed when 

 attacked with showers of stones and noise; he would dart out right 

 and left with his long neck and catch the timid cows, that furtively 

 attempted to run after each report of my gun, fling and drag them 

 back to their places under his head; and then, stretching up to his 

 full height, look me directly and defiantly in the face, roaring and 

 chuckling most vehemently. The cows, however, soon got away from 

 him; they could not stand my racket in spite of their dread of him; 

 but he still stood his ground, making little charges on me of 10 or 15 

 feet, in a succession of gallops or lunges, spitting furiously, and then 

 comically retreating to the old position, with an indescribable leer and 

 swagger, back of which he would not go, fully resolved to hold his 

 own or die in the attemj)t. 



This courage is all the more noteworthy from the fact that in 

 regard to man it is invariably of a defensive character. The seal is 

 always on the defensive; he never retreats, and he will not attack. 

 If he makes you return when j^ou attack him, he never follows you 

 much farther than the boundary of his station, and then no aggrava- 

 tion will compel him to take the offensive, so far as I have been able 

 to observe. I was very much imi)i'essed by this trait. 



Behavior of the female seals on the rookeries. — The cows 

 during the whole season do great credit to their amiable expression 

 by their manner and behavior on the rookerj'-. They never fight or 

 quarrel one with the other, and never or seldom utter a cry of pain or 

 rage when thej^ are roughly handled by the bulls, which frequently 

 get a cow between them and actuallj^ tear the skin from her back 

 with their teeth, cutting deep gashes in it as they snatch her from 

 mouth to mouth. If sand does not get into these wounds it is surpris- 



