SECTION 11. 



THE HAULING GROUNDS OF THE FUR SEAL ON THE PRIBILOV 



ISLANDS OF ALASKA— THEIR AREA, POSITION, AND 



CONDITION IN 1872-1874 AND 1890. 



THE HAULINa GROUNDS OF THE FUR SEAL. 



In 1872-1874 these fields of seal life on the Pribilov Islands were in 

 themselves quite as impressive and interesting as the great rookeries 

 then were. To day (1890) it is a dilficult matter to say where a single 

 well-defined hauling ground on either island exists of more than slight 

 extent in superficial area — those broad acres of 1874 upon which not even 

 a vestige of vegetable growth could live, owing to the tireless pattering of 

 fur-seal flippers — those clean-swept fields are now mossy, grass-grown, 

 and flecked with indigenous flowering plants clear down to the water's 

 edge, or up to verymargins of the rookery grounds, upon which a scanty 

 remnant of that swarmiug host of surplus male seal life, which so aston- 

 ished me ill 1872, now lands ! It hauls there to-day for quiet and protec- 

 tion — instinctively does so, as the last stand for self-preservation left for 

 it on these islands during the past six years. 



In 1872 there was a marked distinction between the "rookeries,"^ or 

 breeding grounds, and the " ezvairie,"^ or hauling grounds ; not in name, 

 not on paper, as it literally is to-day, but in reality then, by the testimony 

 of those grounds and the life thereon itself. I gave the following descrip- 

 tion of the Pribilov hauling grounds and of that life characteristic of 

 them, in 1874: [Monograph Seal Islands of AlasTca : 1881^ p. 43.] 



THE HAULING GROUNDS AND THEIR OCCUPANTS. 



I now call the attention of the reader to another very remarkable feature in the 

 economy of the seal life on these islands. The great herds of holluschickie,^ num- 

 bering about one-third, perhaps, of the whole aggregate of near 5,000,000 seals known 

 to the Pribilov group, are never allowed by the " see-catchie," under the pain of 

 frightful mutilation or death, to put their flippers on or near the rookeries. 



By reference to my map it will be observed that I have located a large extent of 

 ground, markedly so on St. Paul, as that occupied as the seals' hauling grounds. 

 This area, in fact, represents those portions of the island upon which the hollus- 

 chickie roam in their heavy squadrons, wearing off and polishing the surface of the 

 soil, stripping every foot, which is indicated on the chart as such, of its vegetation 

 and mosses, leaving the margin as sharply defined on the bluffy uplands and sandy 

 flats as it is on the map itself. 



The reason that so much more land is covered by the hoUuschickie than by the 

 breeding seals — ten times as much, at least — is due to the fact that though not as 

 numerous, perhaps, as the breeding seals, they are tied down to nothing, so to speak, 

 are wholly irresponsible, and roam hither and thither as caprice and the weather 

 may dictate. Thus they wear oft' and rub down a much larger area than the rookery 



1 " Rookery," an old sealer's term, derived from the swarming, noisy roosts of the 

 rook-bird in England. 



2"Ezvairie," a Russian equivalent of "hauling up;" means literally a "coming 

 out" oT " coming up." The natives call the roo'keTies " laying out" -places or "laas- 

 bustchie," and the hauling grounds, "ezvairie." 



^The Russian term ''hoUuschickie" or "bachelors" is very appropriate, and is 

 usually employed, 003 



