68 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



in solid platoons, they obliterate every spear of grass and rub down 

 nearly every hummock in tlieir way. 



Definition op " holluschickie." — All the male seals, from 6 years 

 of age, are compelled to herd apart by themselves and away from the 

 breeding grounds, in many cases far away, the large hauling grounds 

 at Southwest Point being about 2 miles from the nearest rookery. 

 This class of seals is termed "holluschickie" or the "bachelor" seals 

 by the people, a most fitting and exiDressive appellation. 



The seals of this great subdivision are those with which the natives 

 on the Pribilof group are the most familiar; naturally and especially 

 so since they are the only ones, with the exception of a few thousand 

 pups and occasionally an old bull or two, taken late in the fall for 

 food and skins, which are driven up to the killing grounds at the 

 village for slaughter. The reasons for this exclusive attention to 

 the "bachelors" are most cogent, and will be given hereafter when 

 the "business" is discussed. 



Locating the hauling grounds: Paths through the rook- 

 eries. — Since the "holluschickie" are not permitted by their own 

 kind to land on the rookeries and stop there, they have the choice of 

 two methods of locating, one of which allows them to rest in the rear 

 of the rookeries, and the other on the free beaches. The most notable 

 illustration of the former can be witnessed on Reef Point, where a 

 pathway is left for their ingress and egress through a rookerj^ — a path 

 left by common consent, as it were, between the harems. On these 

 trails of passage they come and go in steady files all day and all night 

 during the season, unmolested by the jealous bulls which guard the 

 seraglios on either side as thej^ travel; all peace and comfort to the 

 young seal if he minds his business and keeps straight on wp or down, 

 mthout stopping to nose about right or left ; all woe and desolation to 

 him, however, if he does not, for in that event he Avill be literally torn 

 in bloody griping from limb to limb by the vigilant old " see-catchie. " 



Since the two and three year old "holluschickie" come up in small 

 squads with the first bulls in the spring, or a few days later, such 

 common highways as those between the rookery ground and the sea 

 are traveled over before the arrival of the cows and get well defined. 

 A passage for the "bachelors," which I took much pleasure in observ- 

 ing day after day at Polavina, another at Tolstoi, and two on the 

 Reef, in 1872, were entirely closed up by the "see-catchie" and oblit- 

 erated when I again searched for them in 1874. Similar passages 

 existed, however, on several of the large rookeries of St. Paul. One of 

 those at Tolstoi exhibits this feature very finely, for here the hauling 

 ground extends around from English Bay, and lies up back of the 

 Tolstoi rookery over a flat and rolling summit from 100 to 120 feet 

 above the sea level. The young males and j'earlings of both sexes 

 come through and between the harems at the height of the breeding 

 season on two of these narrow pathway's, and before reaching the 

 ground above are obliged to climb up an almost abrupt blufi", which 

 they do by following and struggling in the water runs and washes that 

 are worn into its face. As this is a large hauling ground on which 

 every favorable day during the season fifteen or twenty thousand com- 

 monly rest, the sight of skillful seal climbing can be witnessed here 

 at any time during that period; and the sight of such climbing as this 

 of Tolstoi is exceedingly novel and interesting. AVhy, verily, they 

 ascend over and upon places where an ordinary man might at first 

 sight with great positiveness say that it was utterly impossible for 

 him to climb. 



Hauling grounds on the beaches. — The other method of coming 



