ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 97 



rookery, over wliich llie "liolluschickie" haul in proportionate num- 

 bers, and from which the natives make tlieir drives, coming from the 

 village for this purpose, and directing the seals back in their tracks.^ 

 Starry Ateel has 500 feet of sea and clitf margin, with 125 feet of 

 average depth, making ground for 30,420 breeding seals and their 

 young. 



North rookery. — Next in order and half a mile to the eastward 

 is this breeding ground, which sweeps for 2,750 feet along and around 

 tlie sea front of a gently sloping plateau,- being in full sight of and 

 close to the village. It has a superficial area occupied by 77,000 breed- 

 ing seals and their young. From this rookery to the village, a dis- 

 tance of less than a quarter of a mile, the " holluschickie " are driven 

 which are killed for their skins on the common track or seal-worn 

 trail that not only the "bachelors" but ourselves travel over en 

 route to and from Starry Ateel and Zapadnie. It is a broad, hard- 

 thick grass and herbage which covers these mural reaches. Sometimes they will 

 lie down and rest very close to the edge, and then, as you come tramping along, 

 you discover and startle them and yourself alike. They, blinded by their first 

 transports of alarm, leap promptly over the brink, snorting, coughing, and spit- 

 ting as they go. Curiously peering after them and looking down upon the rocks 

 50 to 100 feet below, instead of seeing their stunned and motionless bodies, you 

 will invariably catch sight of them rapidly scrambling into the water, and, when 

 in it. swimming off like arrows from the bow. Three "holhischickie"' were thus 

 inadvertently sui'prised hj me on the edge of the west face to Otter Island. They 

 plunged over from an elevation there not less than 200 feet in sheer elevation, and 

 I distinctly saw them fall, in scrambling, whirling evoluiions. down, thumping upon 

 the rocky shingle beneath, from which they bounded as the.v struck like so many 

 rubber balls. Two of them never moved after the rebound ceased, but the third 

 one reached the water and swam away like a bird on the wing. While they seem 

 to escape without bodily injury incident to such hard falls as ensue from dropping 

 50 or 60 feet upon pebbly beaches and rough bowlders below, and even greater 

 elevations, yet I am inclined to think that some internal injuries are necessarily 

 sustained in most every case, which soon develop and cause death. The excite- 

 ment and the vitality of the seal at the moment of the terrific shock are able to 

 sustain and conceal the real injury for the time being. 



'Driving the "holluschickie" on St. George, owing to the relative scantiness of 

 hauling area for those animals there and consequent small numbers found upon 

 these grounds at any one time, is a very arduous series of daily exercises on the 

 part of the natives who attend to it. Glancing at the map, the marked consider- 

 able distance, over an exceedingly rough road, will be noticed between Zapadnie and 

 the village; yet in 1872 eleven different drives across the island of 400 to 500 seals 

 each were made in the short four weeks of that season. 



The following table shows plainly the striking inferiority of the seal life as to 

 aggregate number on this island compared with that of St. Paul: 



Rookeries of St. Oeorge. 



Number of 



drives 



made in 



1873. 



Number of 



seals 



driven. 



Zapadnie (between June l-t and July 28 ) 



Starry Ateel (between June 6 and July 39) . . 

 Nortli rookery (between .June 1 and July 27) 



Little Eastern . _ _ , 



Great Eastern (between June 5 and July 28). 



.5, 194 

 .5,374 



4.818 



9,714 



The same activity in "sweeping" the hauling grounds of St. Paul would bring 

 in ten times as many seals and the labor be vastly less. The driving at St. Paul 

 is generally done with an eye to securing each day of the season only as many as 

 can be well killed and skinned on that day, according as it be warmish or cooler. 



-I should say "a gently sloping and alternating bluff plateau.' Two thousand 

 feet are directly under the abrupt faces of low cliffs, while the other 750 feet slope 

 down gradually to the water's edge. These narrow cliff belts of breeding fur seals 

 might be properly styled "rookery ribbons." 



H. Doc. 92, pt. 3 7 



