106 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



disturbance, or molestation, during the three seasons which I passed 

 upon the islands, that could he regarded in the slightest degree inim- 

 ical to the peace and life of tlie Pinnipedia; and thus, from my obser- 

 vation, I am led to believe that it is not until they descend well to the 

 south of the Aleutian Islands, and in the North Pacific, that they meet 

 with sharks to any extent, and are diminished by the butchery of 

 killer whales.^ 



The young fur seals going out to sea for the first time, and following 

 in the wake of their elders, are the clumsy members of the family. 

 When they go to sleep on the surface of the water, they rest miich 

 sounder than the others; and their alert and wary nature, which is 

 handsomely developed ere they are two seasons old, is in its infancy. 

 Hence, I believe that vast numbers of them are easily captured by 

 marine foes, as they are stupidly sleeping or awkwardly fishing. 



Behavior op fur seals in the waters around the islands. — 

 In tiiis connection I wish to record an impression very strongly made 

 upon my mind in regard to their diverse behavior when out at sea, 

 away from the islands, and when congregated thereon. As I have 

 plainl}^ exhibited in the foregoing chapter, they are practically without 

 fear of mnn when he visits them on the land of their birth and recrea- 

 tion. But the same seal that noticed j^ou with quiet indifference at 

 St. Paul in June and July and the rest of the season while he was 

 there, or gamboled around your boat when you rowed from the ship 

 to shore, as a dog will play about your horses when you drive from 

 the gate to the house, that same seal, when you meet him in one of th*e 

 passes of the Aleutian chain, 100 or 200 miles away from here, as the 

 case may be, or to the southward of that archipelago, is the shiest and 

 wariest creature your ingenuity can define. Happy are you in getting 

 but a single glimx3se of him first ; you will never see him after until 

 he hauls out and winks and blinks across Lukannon sands. ^ 



But the comi^anionship and the exceeding number of the seals, when 

 assembled together annually, makes them bold, largelj^ due perhaps to 

 their fine instinctive understanding, dating probably back many years, 

 seeming to know that man, after all, is not wantonly destroying them, 

 and what he takes he only takes from the ravenous maw of the killer 



' In the stomach of one of these animals year before last 14 small harp seals were 

 found. — Michael Carroll's Report of Seal and Herring Fisheries of Newfoundland. 



'^ When iur seals were noticed by myself, far away from these islands at sea. I ob- 

 served that then they were as shy and as wary as the most timorous animal which, 

 in dreading man's proximity, could be — sinking instantly, on apprehending the 

 approach or presence of the ship, seldom to reappear to my gaze. But when 

 gathered in such immense numbers at the Pribilof Islands they are suddenly 

 metamorphosed into creatures wholly indifferent to my person. It must cause a 

 very curious sentiment in the mind of him who comes for the first time during 

 the summer season to the island of St. Paul, where, when the landing boat or 

 lighter carries him ashore from the vessel, the whole short marine journey is en- 

 livened by the gambols and aquatic evolutions of fur-seal convoys to the "bidar- 

 rah," which sport joyously and fearlessly round and roiind his craft as she is rowed 

 lustily ahead by the natives; the fur seals then of all classes, " holluschickie, " 

 principally, pop their dark heads up out of the sea, rising neck and shoulders erect 

 above the surface, to peer and ogle at him and at his boat, diving quickly to reap- 

 pear just ahead or right behind, hardly beyond striking distance from the oars. 

 These gymnastics of C'allorhinus are not wholly performed thus in silence, for it 

 usually snorts and chuckles with hearty reiteration. 



The sea lions up here also manifest much the same marine interest, and give 

 the voyager an exhibition quite similar to the one which I have just spoken of, 

 when a small boat is rowed in the neighborhood of its shore rookery; it is not, 

 however, so bold, confident, and social as the fur seal under the circumstances, 



