128 THE FUR TRADE OF AMERICA 



mothers by the poachers than either the poachers could total or 

 the fur companies kill legally ; and the poaching was done so cruelly 

 and hurriedly that thousands of seals were flayed alive. 



Keep that fact in mind, when the controversy comes up again, 

 as up it will come just as soon as poachers hoist the flag of any 

 South American nation, which was not a signatory to the treaty. 



Now for the Alaska Fur Seal, itself ! 



It is short-necked, flat-bodied, low-lying, clumsy, ugly, with 

 short front flippers and short hairy claws, and no external ears 

 and an over hair short, close and of no fur value. It is the under 

 pelage is the fur of the trade. Hornaday says the Fur Seal is not 

 a true seal at all but a Sea Bear. Henry Elliot's book on the Fur 

 Seal is the classic of Alaskan literature and should be read by all 

 disputants ; for Elliot made his survey thirty years before there was 

 any controversy. 



The Alaska Seal spends nine months of every year as a deep 

 sea cruiser, circling from Alaska half-way down the Mid-Pacific, 

 back inland towards California Coasts and then northward to the 

 Aleutian Islands, where it bears its young. Why it chose the Fur 

 Seal Islands of Alaska, Japan and Russia for its lying-in hospital — 

 science does not know. The rookeries of two islands in Bering Sea 

 are the favorite lying-in hospitals for bringing forth the young. 

 The why of that is also absolutely unknown. The Seal of the Jap- 

 anese and Russian Islands have not a pelt ranking high as the Alas- 

 kan. The why of that is also unknown. 



The seal cruises the 6000-mile circuit without once touching 

 lands which are not submerged. St. Paul and St. George of the 

 Pribilofs are the great landing places. Hither come the seal the first 

 fifteen days of May, regularly as the green warblers pass over the 

 Eastern States to Hudson Bay, the first ten days in May. By 

 September, the young are old enough to cruise. By November, 

 not a seal is left on the Seal Islands. Mating occurs immediately 

 after the birth of the young. Each male fights for a harem of six 

 to ten ladies ; and the fight is the crudest thing in all the cruelties 



