ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 265 



ticular other one, that I feel sure I am entirely right in saying that the 

 seal inotliers know their own yonng; and that they will not permit any 

 others to nurse save their own. I believe that this recognition of them 

 is due chiefly to the mother's scent and hearing. 



J. Parasites op the ftr seal [Section 9j. — The fur seal spends 

 a great deal of time, botli at sea and on land, in scratching its hide; 

 for it is annoyed by a species of louse, a pediculus, to just about the 

 same degree and in the same manner that our dogs are by fleas. To 

 scratch, it sits upon its haunches and scrapes away with the toe nails of 

 first one and then the other of its hind flippers; by which action it 

 reaches readily all portions of its head, neck, chest, and shoulders; 

 and, with either one or the other of its fore flippers, it rubs down its 

 spinal region back of the slioulders to the tail. By that division of 

 labor with its feet, it can promptly reduce, with every sign of comfort, 

 any lousy irritation wheresoever on its ])0(ly. Tliis pedicuhis i^eculiar 

 to the fur seal attaches itself almost exclusively to the pectoral regions; 

 a few, also, are generally found at the bases of the auricular j)avilions. 



When the fur seal is engaged in this exercise, it cocks its head and 

 wears exactly the same expression that our common house dog does 

 while subjugating and eradicating fleas; the eyes are partly or wholly 

 closed; the tongue lolls out; and the whole demeanor is one of quiet 

 but intense satisfaction. 



The fur seal appears also to scratch itself in the water with the same 

 facility and unction so marked on land; only it varies the action by 

 using its fore hands principally, in its fluvatile exercise, w^hile its hind 

 feet do most of the terrestrial scraping. 



K. Healthiness of the fur seals [Section 9]. — While I have writ- 

 ten with much emphasis upon the total absence of any record as to the 

 prevalence of an epidemic in these large rookeries, I should, perhaps, 

 mark the fact that no symptoms of internal diseases have ever been 

 noticed here, such as tuberculosis of the lungs, etc., which invariably 

 attack and destroy the fur seal when it is taken into coutineiiient, as 

 well as the sea lions also; the latter, however, have a much greater 

 power of.endurance under such artificial circumstances of life. The 

 thousands ujwn thousands of disemboweled Pribilof fur-seal carcasses 

 have never presented abnormal or diseased viscera of any kind. 



L. Behavior of fur seals at night [Section 9]. — I naturally 

 enough, when beginning my investigation of these seal rookeries, 

 expected to find the animals subdued at night or early morning on the 

 breeding grounds; but a few consecutive nocturnal watches satisfied 

 me that the family organization and noise was as active at one time as 

 at another throughout the whole twenty-four hours. If, however, the 

 day preceding had chanced to be abnormally warm, I never failed then 

 to find the rookeries much more noisy and active during the night than 

 they were by daylight. The seals, as a rule, come and go to and from 

 the sea, fight, roar, and vocalize as much during midnight moments 

 as they do at noonday times. An aged native endeavored to sat- 

 isfy me that the "seecatchie" could see much better by twilight and 

 night than by daj^light. I am not prepared to prove to the contrary, 

 but 1 think that the fact of his not being able to see so well himself at 

 that hour of darkness was the true cause of most of his belief in the 

 improved nocturnal vision of the seals. 



As I write, this old Aleut, Phillip Vollkov, has passed to his final 

 rest — "un konchielsah" — winter of 1878-79. He was one of the real 

 characters of St. Paul. He was esteemed by the whites on account of 

 his relative intelligence, and beloved by the natives, who called him 



