ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 185 



running out into tlie sea from those islands. They congregate here 

 in hundreds of thousands in closely packed flocks on the beach. On 

 those places it is strictly prohibited to hunt the animal or to^ disturb 

 it during its rest without special permission from the village foreman, 

 who is selected by the Aleuts living on the place. When a number 

 of sea bears are to be killed a flock is surrounded by a sufficient 

 number of hunters and are driven with sticks up on the grass a short 

 distance from the beach. Then females and young ones, and those 

 males whose fur coat is not desirable, are driven away. The remain- 

 ing ones are stunned first with a blow on the nose and then stabbed 

 with a knife. 



Inspection of a eookery. — Accompanied by the village foreman, 

 a black-haired stuttering Aleut, and the "Cossack, "a young, neat, and 

 polite man, who on special occasions carries a saber of nearly his own 

 length, but who otherwise not in the least answered to the Cossack 

 type accepted bj^ writers of novels and dramas, a few of us visited a 

 spit sticking out in the sea from tlie north side of the island, which is a 

 favorite resting place for sea bears. Just at that time there were, in 

 accordance with surely overestimated statements which we received, 

 200,000 animals congregated at the spit and neighboring beaches. 

 Accompanied by our guides, we received permission to crawl close on 

 to a flock lying a little separate. The older animals were a little 

 uneasy at first when they noticed that we crawled near them, but 

 they very soon settled down again, and we now had the pleasure of a 

 peculiar spectacle. We were the onlj^ spectators. The scene con- 

 sisted of a stone-covered beach wreathed with foaming breakers, the 

 background of the unmeasurable sea, and the actors thousands of 

 curiously formed animals. 



A number of old males were lying still and immovable, unconcerned 

 about what went on around them. Others crawled on their short, 

 small legs clumsily among the rocks on the beach, or swam with 

 incredible suppleness among the breakers, playing, cooing with each 

 other, and quarreling. In one place two older, animals fought with a 

 peculiar wheezing noise, in a manner as if the fighting had taken place 

 with studied positions for attack and defense. In another, a sham 

 fight between an old animal and a pup. It appeared as if that one 

 was receiving lessons in the art of fencing. Everywhere the little 

 black pups were crawling friskily to and fro between the others, now 

 and then bleating like lambs calling their mothers. Often the pups 

 are crushed by the old, when, scared by some untoward circumstance, 

 they, rush out in the sea. Hundreds of dead pups are found after 

 such an alarm on the beach. 



Only 13,000 animals had been killed this year. Their skinned car- 

 casses were lying heaped in the grass on the beach, spreading a disa- 

 greeable smell .far and wide, which after all did not scare their com- 

 rades lying on neighboring points, because among them a similar smell 

 prevailed, on account of the many dead animals remaining on the 

 beach, either crushed or dead from natural causes. Among this large 

 herd of sea bears a single sea lion was enthroned on top of a high 

 rock, the only one of those animals which we had seen during our 

 travels. 



Against payment of 40 rubles I prevailed on the village chief to pre- 

 pare for me four skeletons of those half-rotten carcasses lying in the 

 grass, and afterwards I received, through the kindness of the Russian 

 authorities and without any compensation, for stuffing six animals, 



