222 THE SEALS. 



coine so accustomed to the natives that the presence of the latter does 

 not disturb them. The pups are easily handled by the natives, and 

 formerly, when used as an article of food, thousands of pups were actu- 

 ally picked up and examined, in accordance with Government require- 

 ment, to avoid the killing of a female. So easily are the seals con- 

 trolled that, when a drive of "bachelors" is made to the killing 

 grounds, a guard of two or three small boys is sufficient to keep them 

 from straying, and from the general band any number from one up- 

 wards can be readily cut out. It is possible in the future, as it has 

 been in the past, to reserve unmolested suitable areas to serve as breed- 

 ing grounds; to set aside each year a proper number of young males 

 for future service upon the rookeries, and by the application of the or- 

 dinary stock-breeding principles not only to perpetuate but to rapidly 

 increase the seal herd. 



I think he [II. W. Elliott, in his "Report on the Seal Islands of 

 Alaska"] might, however, have made his descrip- 



Geo.H. Temple, p. 153. tion of the animals and the manner of obtaining 



their skins for market more intelligible to the 



ordinary reader by following more closely the analogy between the 



seals and farm animals, which invariably strikes the observer who is 



familiar with the rearing, handling, and slaughtering of both. 



A farmer on going to the seal islands at once notices, as I did, that 

 the term "seal hunting," so called, conveys no idea of the business of 

 taking seals for their skins as it is there carried on. It is in no sense 

 " hunting," the work of bringing in for slaughter from their accustomed 

 haunts, and slaying such numbers of killable seals from day to day 

 as will serve as a day's work for those engaged in the killing being in 

 no way different from that pursued by the farmer in driving up his farm 

 herd and selecting and killing such as he sees Jit; the only difference 

 being that, in the case of the seals, i]\^ pasture in which they feed is 

 the broad ocean, out of which the seal farmer can not drive them. He 

 must wait until they come on shore; but he can count with absolute 

 certainty on their coming within his reach in due time, provided only 

 their natural enemies oppose them and they are spared while at sea by 

 their human enemies, who may, with perfect propriety, be termed "seal 

 hunters." 



The analogy can be further profitably followed by comparing the 

 system usually pursued in breeding domestic animals with the methods 

 adopted by the late lessees of the seal fisheries in preserving all the 

 female seals, and enough males lor breeders, and also in their manner 

 of driving, yarding, herding, selecting for slaughter and for breeding, 

 handling the young, and generally in the management of the herd; 

 the exception in this respect being found chiefly in the fact that the 

 seals, alter they are a few months old, can not be manipulated with the 

 hands, because of their propensity to bite, but must always be kept at 

 arm's length by theherdman's seal club, in the use of which he becomes 

 so expert that," without striking the seal or in any way injuring him, he- 

 protects himself most thoroughly against the snapping jaws and sharp 

 teeth by which he is confronted. 



Before f lie young seal leaves the island for the first time, in the year 

 of his birth, lie is less vicious, or less expert in the use of his teeth, and 

 may be picked up by the flippers, or, if necessary, marked or branded; 

 and at the proper season of the year I think 80 or 00 per cent of all the 

 young could be brought up from the beaches and so dealt with, 



