62 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



vals to nurse and look after their pups a short time. They presented 

 to my eye, from the summits of the bluffs round about, a picture 

 more suggestive of entire comfort and enjoyment than anything I 

 have ever seen presented bj^ animal life. Here, just out and beyond 

 the breaking of the rollers, they idly lie on the rocks or sand beaches, 

 ever and anon turning over and over, scratching their backs and sides 

 with their fore and hind flippers. The seals on the breeding ground 

 appear to get very lousy. (See note, 39, K.) 



Mangy cows and pups. — The frequent winds and showers drive 

 and si^atter sand into their fur and eyes, often making the latter quite 

 sore. This occurs when they are obliged to leave the rocky rookeries 

 and follow their pups out over the sand ridges and flats, to which 

 they always have a natural aversion. On the hauling grounds they 

 pack the soil under foot so hard and tightly in many places that it 

 holds water in the surface depressions just like so many rock basins. 

 Out of and into these puddles the pups and the females flounder and 

 patter incessantly, until evaporation slowly abates the nuisance. This 

 is for the time only, inasmuch as the next day, perhaps, brings more 

 rain, and the dirty pools are replenished. 



The pups sometimes get so thoroughly plastered in these muddy, 

 slimy puddles, that the hair falls oft' in patches, giving them, at first 

 sight, the appearance of being troubled with scrofula or some other 

 plague ; from my investigations directed to this point, I became satis- 

 fied that they were not permanently injured, though evidently very 

 much annoyed. With reference to this suggestion as to sickness or 

 distemper among the seals, I gave the subject direct and continued 

 attention, and in no one of the rookeries could I discover a single 

 seal, no matter how old or young, which aj^peared to be suffering in 

 the least from any physical disorder, other than that which they them- 

 selves had inflicted, one upon the other, by fighting. The third season, 

 passing directly under my observation, failed to reward my search 

 with any manifestation of disease among the seals which congregate 

 in such mighty numbers on the rookeries of St. Paul and St. George. 

 The remarkable freedom from all such complaints enjoj'^ed by these 

 animals is noteworthy; and the most trenchant and penetrating cross- 

 questioning of the natives also failed to give me anj^ history or 

 evidence of an epidemic in the past. 



Hospitals. — The observer will, however, notice every summer, gath- 

 ered in melancholy squads of a dozen to one hundred or so, scattered 

 along the coast where the healthy seals never go, those sick and dis- 

 abled bulls which have, in the earlier part of the season, been either 

 internally injured or dreadfully scarred by the teeth of their oppo- 

 nents in fighting. Sand is blown by the winds into the fresh wounds 

 and causes an inflammation and a sloughing, which very often fin- 

 ishes the life of the victim. The sailors term these Invalid gatherings 

 " hospitals," a phrase which, like most of their homely expressions, is 

 quite appropriate. 



Young seals learning to swim. — Early in August, usually by the 

 8th or lOtli, I noticed one of the remarkable movements of the season. 

 I refer to the pup's first essay in swimming. Is it not odd — ^i)aradox- 

 ical — that the young seal, from the moment of his birth until he is a 

 month or six weeks old, is utterly unable to swim? If he is seized by 

 the nape of the neck and pitched out into the water a rod from shore, 

 his bullet-like head will drop instantly below the surface, and his 

 attenuated posterior extremities flap impotently on it; suffocation is 

 the question of only a few minutes, the stupid little creature not know- 

 ing how to raise his immersed head and gain the air again. After 



