152 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



Stomach walls used as oil pouches. — Avonnd the natives' 

 houses on St. Paul and St. George constantly appear curious objects, 

 which, to the unaccustomed eye, resemble overgrown gourds or enor- 

 mous calabashes with attenuated necks. An examination proves them 

 to be the dried, distended stomach walls of the sea lion, filled with its 

 oil, which, unlike the offensive blubber of the fur seal, boils out clear 

 and inodorous from its fat. The flesh of an old sea lion, while not 

 very palatable, is tasteless and dry, but the meat of a yearling is very 

 much like veal, and when properly cooked I think it is just as good; 

 but the superiority of the sea-lion meat over that of the fur seal is 

 decidedly marked. It requires some skill in the cuisine ere sausage 

 and steaks of the Ccdlorhinus are accepted on the table, while it does 

 not, however, require much art, experience, or patience for the cook to 

 serve up the juicy ribs of a young sea lion so that the most fastidious 

 palate will fail to relish it. 



Caring for the flesh. — The carcass of the sea lion, after it is 

 stripped of its hide and disemboweled, is hung up in cool weather by 

 its hind flippers over a rude wooden frame, or "labaas," as the natives 

 call it, where, together with many more bodies of fur seals treated in 

 the same manner, it serves from November until the following season 

 of Mayas the moat house of the Aleut on St. Paul and St. George. 

 Exposed in this manner to the open weather the natives keep their 

 seal meat almost any length of time in winter for use, and, like our 

 old duck and bird hunters, thej^ say they prefer to have the meat 

 tainted rather than fresh, declaring that it is most tender and tooth- 

 some when decidedly "loud." 



Chinese demand for whiskers. — The tough, elastic mustache 

 bristles of the sea lion are objects of great commercial activity by the 

 Chinese, who prize them highly for pickers to their opium pipes and 

 several ceremonies peculiar to their joss houses. The lip bristles 

 of the fur seal are usually too small and too elastic for this service. 

 The natives, however, always carefully pluck them out of the Euine- 

 topias and get their full value in exchange. 



Diet of the sea lion. — The sea lion also, as in the case of the fur 

 seal, is a fish eater pure and simple, though he, like the latter, occa- 

 sionally- varies his diet by consuming a limited amount of juicy sea- 

 , weed fronds and tender marine crustaceans; but he hunts no animal 

 whatever for food, nor does he ever molest up here the sea fowl that 

 incessantly hovers over his head or sits in flocks without fear on the 

 surface of the waters around him. He, like the CaUorliinus, is with- 

 out question a mighty fisherman, familiar with every subm.ariiie haunt 

 of his piscatorial prey, and, like his cousin, rejects the heads of all 

 those fish which have hard, horny mouths, or are filled with teeth or 

 bony plates.^ 



•Many autllorities who are quoted in regard to the habits of the hair seals and 

 southern sea lions speak with much fine detail of having witnessed the capture of 

 sea fowl by Phocidce and Otariidce. To this point of inquiry on the Pribilof Islands 

 I gave continued close attention, because off and around all of the rookeries large 

 flocks of auks, arries, gulls, shags, and choochkies were swimming upon the water 

 and shifting thereupon incessantly day and niglit throughout the late spring, sum- 

 mer, and early fall. During the four seasons of my observation I never saw the 

 slightest motion made by a fur seal or sea lion, a hair seal, or a walrus toward 

 intentionally disturbing a single bird, much less of capturing and eating it. Had 

 these seals any appetite for sea fowl this craving could have been abundantly satis- 

 fied at the exi^ense of absolutely no effort on their i^art. That none of these animals 

 have any taste for water birds I am thoroughly assured. 



