218 THE SEALS. 



1 was reared on a farm, and have been familiar from boyhood with 

 the breeding of domestic animals, and partieu- 



E. N. ciark, p. 159. larly with the rearing and management of young 



animals; hence a comparison of the young seals 



with the. young of our common domestic species is most natural. From 



my experience with both I am able to declare positively that it is 



easier to manage and handle young seals than calves or lambs. 



Large numbers of the former are customarily driven up in the fall 

 by the natives, to kill a certain number for food, and all could be 

 "rounded up" as the prairie cattle are, if there was any need for doing 

 so. All the herd so driven are lifted up one by one and examined 

 as to sex, and while in this position each could be branded or marked 

 if necessary. 



If the seal rookeries were my personal property I should regard the 

 task of branding all the young as no more difficult or onerous than the 

 branding of all my calves if I were engaged in breeding cattle upon 

 the prairies. 



The same force that has heretofore been engaged on the Pribilof Is- 

 lands in killing seals in the summer could easily drive up and brand, iu 

 a few days in the fall months, all the " pup " seals born on the islands. 



During this first summer of their existence, after the breeding grounds 

 have been broken up, it is possible to take pos- 



Saml. FalQona; p. 1G5. session of every pup on the islands and mark 

 them so they could be recognized in the future. 



The manner in which the seals were driven and killed seemed to me 

 to be as good as could be adopted, and just such 

 H. V. Fletcher, p. 105. as any one would adopt who was accustomed to 

 the management of farm animals. I was sur- 

 prised to see how closely in nearly every respect the seal herds resem- 

 ble droves of our domestic animals. Almost anything is done with 

 them that we habitually do with our flocks and herds in farm life, ex- 

 cept to feed them. They are started up from the beaches, collected in 

 convenient sized droves, and driven by a very few men to the proper 

 killing grounds, exactly as I would handle a flock of sheep; and, uuless 

 the weather was very hot and dry, seemed to me to sutler no more nor 

 stand any greater risk of injury from driving than sheep would and do 

 under similar circumstances. When they arrive at the killing grounds 

 they can be kept in a yard or corral surrounded by an ordinary cattle 

 fence; but, without the trouble even of building a fence, with a single 

 keeper to watch them and a few pieces of board set up around them 

 on which some strips of sacking or old garments are hung, several 

 thousand are herded and kept for hours, until the time, perhaps on the 

 following day, for their slaughter. They grow very tame and tractable 

 by repeated driving, and even the old bulls lose their fierceness and 

 seldom turn upon their herders, particularly when brought in from the 

 rookeries near the villages, where they become most familiar with man. 

 They seem never to be afflicted with any disease. The pups are 

 always healthy, fat, and happy; the males too young for slaughter play 

 about on the rookeries during the killing season and between the in- 

 tervals of driving to the killing ground, galloping up and down the 

 slopes or wrestling in good natured contest, as the young of other ani- 

 mals do when undisturbed, showing no signs of fear or timidity. The 

 still younger seals, during their lirst few weeks, ha ve so little fear of man 

 that they may be picked up at any time more readily than young lambs; 



