266 ' ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



their "wise man,'' and who exulted in his piety. Phillij), like the other 

 people there of his kind, was not much comfort to me when 1 asked 

 questions as to the seals. He usually answered important inquiries by 

 crossing himself and replying, "(iod knows." There was no appeal 

 from this. 



M. SuLLENNESs OF OLD MALE SEALS [Sectiou 10]. — The old males, 

 when grouped together by themselves, at the close of the breeding; 

 season, indulge in no humor or frolicsome festivities whatsoever. On 

 the contrary, they treat each other with surly indifference. The mature 

 females, however, do not appear to lose their good nature to anything 

 like so marked a degree as do their lords and masters, for they will at 

 all seasons of their presence on the islands be observed now and then 

 to suddenly unbend from severe matronly gravity by coyly and amiably 

 tickling and gently teasing one another as they rest in the harems, or 

 later, when strolling in September. There is no sign given, however, 

 by these seal mothers of desire or action in fondling or caressing their 

 pupsf nor do the young appear to sport with any others than the pups 

 themselves when together. Sometimes a yearling and a live or six 

 months old pup will have a long-continued game l>etween themselves. 

 They are decidedly clannish in this respect — creatures of caste, like 

 Hindoos. 



ISI". Leaping out of water: "Dolphin jumps'' [Section 10]. — As 

 I never detected the sea lions or the hair seals leaping from the water 

 around these islands in those peculiar dolphin-like jumps which I have 

 hitherto described, I made a note of it early during my first season of 

 observation, for corroboration in the next. It is so; neither the sea 

 lion nor the hair seal here ever leaped from the ocean in this agile and 

 singular fashion heretofore described. Allen, so conservative usually, 

 seems, however, to have fallen into an error by reading the notes of 

 Mr. J. H. Blake, descriptive of the sea lions of the Gallapagos Islands. 

 As Allen quotes them entire in a footnote (page 211, History of North 

 American Pinnipeds), I am warranted in calling attention to the fact 

 that no authentic record has as yet been made of such peculiar swim- 

 ming by Fhocidw, or the sea-lion branch of the Otariida'. My notice 

 has been called to this mistake by Professor Allen's own note (page 

 307) upon a quotation from my work citing Mr. Blake's notes above 

 referred to, which are themselves very interesting, but do not even 

 hint at a dolphin jump. 



How fast the fur seal can swim when doing its best I am naturally 

 unable to state. I do know that a squad of young "holluschickie" 

 followed the Eeliance, in which I was sailing, down from the latitude 

 of the seal islands to Akootan Pass with perfect ease, playing around 

 the vessel while she was logging straight ahead 14 knots to the hour. 



The fur seal, the sea lion, the walrus, and the hair seal all swim 

 around these islands and in these waters, submerged, extended hori- 

 zontally, and squarely ujjon their stomachs, I make this note here 

 because I am surprised to read (on page 651, Allen : Bist. N. A, Pinni- 

 peds) that the harp (hair) seal's "favorite position when swimming, as 

 affirmed by numerous observers, is on the back or side, in which posi- 

 tion they also sleep in the water." Although this is a far distant, geo- 

 graphically speaking, relative of the hair seal of St. Paul Island, yet 

 the remarkable difference in fashion of swimming seems hardly war- 

 ranted, when the two animals are built exactly alike. Still, I have no 

 'disposition to question, earnestly, the truth of the statement, inasmuch 

 as I have learned of so many very striking radical differences in habits 

 of animals as closely related, as to pause ere seriously doubting this 



