SECTION III. 



THE METHOD OP DRIVING AND TAKING FUR SEALS ON THE PRIBILOV 

 ISLANDS OF ALASKA, SEASONS OF 1872-1874 AND 1890. 



DRIVING. 



The increasing difficulty of getting that regular quota of 100,000 

 young male fur-seal skins annually ever since 1882, due to a steady 

 diminution of supi^ly on the Pribilov Islands, has made it necessary to 

 drive right from the breeding grounds, incessantly, with an annual 

 increased severity during the last six or seven years. The hauling 

 grounds of 1872-1874, which were far distant from these rookeries and 

 upon which large surplus herds of seal rested from the beginning to 

 the end of each season undisturbed, were all abandoned as the seals 

 fell away in numbers, until by 1889-90 grass grew and grows right to 

 the water's edge over them. 



The remnants of these herds began as early as 1884 to seek quiet 

 and i^rotection by hauling under the lee of the breeding animals, and 

 in doing so, hauled out and laid down upon the immediate flanks of the 

 breeding cows and bulls, close to them, and often intermingled at the 

 outer edge. Therefore, in order to get the young male seals so hauled, 

 it became necessary as early as 1884-85, to scrape the edges of the rook- 

 eries in driving out and up the killable seals : and, in 1889, it was done 

 with great vigor, which was increased, really intensified, during the past 

 season. 



This extraordinary driving was never dreamed of in 1872-1874, much 

 less done. Then the young male seals, being in great numbers, landed 

 in the followiug manner, which I spoke of in 1874: 



By reference to tlie habit of the fur seal, which I have discussed at length, it is 

 now plain and beyond doubt that two-thirds of all the males which are born, and 

 they are equal in numbers to the females born, are never permitted by the remaining 

 third, strongest by natural selection, to land upon the same breeding ground with 

 the females, which always herd thereupon en masse. Hence this great band of 

 bachelor seals, or holluschickie, so fitly termed, when it visits the island, is obliged 

 to live apart entirely, sometimes and some places miles away from the rookeries; and 

 in this admirably perfect method of nature are those seals which can be properly 

 killed without injury to the rookeries, selected and held aside by their own volition: 

 so that the natives can visit and take them without disturbing in the least degree 

 the entire quiet of the breeding grounds, where the stock is perpetuated. 



Such was the number and method of the young male seals in 1872- 

 1874. It is very different to-day. From the hour of the first driving 

 of 1890, May 21, up to the close of the season, July 20, all this driving 

 was regularly made from rookery grounds, from the immediate margins 

 of the breeding animals, icith the solitary exception of that one place. 

 Middle Mill, English Bay, St. Paul Island. Ifot a drive tvas made else- 



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