ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 117 



the line, and the seal shamble begins agaiji — their march to death and 

 the markets of the world is taken up anew. 



Docility of fur seals when driven. — I was also impressed by 

 the singular docility and amiability of these animals when driven 

 along the road. They never show light any more than a flock of sheep 

 wonld do. If, however, a few old seals get mixed in, they nsually get 

 so weary that they prefer to come to a standstill and fight rather tlian 

 move. Otherwise no sign wdiatever of resistance is made by the drove 

 from the moment it is intercepted and tnrned np from the liauling 

 grounds to the time of its destruction at the hands of the sealing gang. 



This disposition of tlie old seals to fight rather than endure tlie 

 panting toi-ture of travel is of great advantage to all parties con- 

 cerned; for they are worthless commercially, and the natives are only 

 too glad to let them drop behind, where they remain unmolested, 

 eventually returning to the sea. The fur on them is of little or no 

 value; their under wool being very much shorter, coarser, and more 

 scant than in the younger, especially so on the posterior parts along 

 the median line of the back. 



Change in pelage. — This change for the worse or deterioration of 

 the pelage of the fur seal takes place, as a rule, in the fifth year of 

 their age. It is thickest and finest in texture during the third and 

 fourth year of life; hence in driving the seals on 8t. Paul and St. 

 George up from the hauling grounds the natives make, as far as 

 practicable, a selection from males of that age. 



It is quite impossible, however, to get them all of one age without 

 an extraordinary amount of stir and bustle, wliicli the Aleuts do not 

 like to precipitate; hence the drive will be found to consist usually 

 of a bare majority of 3 and 4 year olds, the rest being 2-}' ear-olds prin- 

 cipally, and a very few, at wide intervals, 5-year-olds, the yearlings 

 seldom ever getting mixed up. 



Method op land travel. — As the drove progresses along the 

 path to the slaughtering grounds the seals all move in about the same 

 wa}^ They go ahead with a kind of walking step and a sliding, sham- 

 bling gallop. The i^rogression of the whole caravan is a succession 

 of starts, spasmodic and irregular, made every few minutes, the seals 

 jjausing to catch their breath p^nd make, as it were, a plaintive sur- 

 vey and mute protest. Every now and tlien a seal will get weak in 

 the lumbar region, then drag its posteriors along for a short distance, 

 finally drop breathless and exhausted, quivering and panting, not to 

 revive for hours — da3^s, perhaps — and often never. During the driest 

 driving days, or those days when the temperature does not combine 

 with wet fog to keep the path moist and cool, quite a large number 

 of the weakest animals in the drove will be thus laid out and left on 

 the track. If one of these prostrate seals is not too much heated at 

 the time, the native driver usually taps the beast over the head and 

 removes its skin.^ 



'The fur seal, like all of the pinnipeds, has no sweat glands; hence, when it is 

 heated, it cools off by the same process of panting which is so characteristic of 

 the dog, accompanied by the fanning that I have hitherto fully described: the 

 heavy breathing and low grunting of a tired drove of seals on a warmer day than 

 usual can be heard several hundred yards away. It is surprising liow quickly 

 the hair and fur will come out of the skin of a blood-heated seal — literally rubs 

 bodily off at a touch of the finger. A fine specimen of a 3-year-old "holluschak" 

 fell in its tracks at the head of the lagoon while being driven to the village killing 

 grounds. I asked that it be skinned with special reference to mounting; accord- 

 ingly, a native was sent for, who was on the spot, knife in hand, within less than 

 thirty minutes from the mom^^nt that this seal fell in the road; yet, soon after he 

 had got fairly to work, patches c f the fur and hair came off here and there 

 wherever he chanced to clutch the skin. 



