THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 13 



restricted, for some reason or other, to the island of St. George, where it is, or at least was, in 1874, very abundant. 

 Its burrows and paths, under and among the grassy hummocks and mossy flats, checkered every square rod of land 

 there covered with this vegetation. Although the island of St. Paul is but 29 or 30 miles to the northwest, not a single. 

 one of these active, curious little animals is found on it, nor could I learn from the natives that it had ever been 

 seen there. The foxes are also restricted to these islands; that is, their kind, which are not found elsewhere, except 

 the stray examples on St. Matthew seen by myself, and those which are carefully domesticated and preserved 

 at Attoo, the extreme westernmost laud of the Aleutian chain. These animals find comfortable holes for their 

 accommodation and retreat on the seal-islands, among the countless chinks and crevices of the basaltic formatiou. 

 They feed and grow fat upon sick and weakly seals, also devouring many of the pups, and they vary this diet by 

 water-fowl and eggs * during the summer, returning for their subsistence during the long winter to the bodies of 

 seals upon the breeding-grounds and the skinned carcasses left upon the killing-fields. Were they not regularly 

 hunted from December until April, when their fur is in its prime beauty and condition, they would swarm like the 

 lemming on St. George, and perhaps would soon be obliged to eat one another. The natives, however, thin them 

 out by incessant trapping and shooting during the period when the seals are away from the islands. 



The Pribylov group is as yet free from rats ; at least, none have got off from the ships. There is no harbor 

 at either of these islands, and the ships lie out iu the roadstead, so far from land that these pests do not venture 

 to swim to the shore. Mice were long ago brought to shore in ships' cargoes, and they are a great nuisance to 

 the white people as well as the natives throughout the islands. Hence cats also are abundant. Nowhere perhaps 

 in the wide world are such cats to be seen as these. The tabby of our acquaintance, when she goes up there and 

 lives upon the seal-meat spread everywhere under her nose, is metamorphosed, by time of the second generation, 

 into a stubby feline ball; in other words, she becomes thickened, short, and loses part of the normal length of her 

 tail; also her voice is prolonged and resonant far beyond the misery which she inflicts upon our ears here. These 

 cats actually swarm about the natives' houses, never in them much, for only a tithe of their whole number can 

 be made pets of; but they do make night hideous beyond all description. They repair for shelter, often, to the 

 chinks of precipices, and bluffs, but, although not exactly wild, yet they cannot be approached or cajoled. The 

 natives, when their sluggish wits are periodically thoroughly aroused and disturbed by the volume of cat-calls 

 in the village, sally out and by a vigorous effort abate the nuisance for the time being. The most extravagant 

 caterwauling alone will or can arouse this Aleutian ire. 



Stock and poultry-raising. — On account of the severe climatic conditions it is of course impracticable 

 to keep stock here with any profit or pleasure. The experiment has been tried faithfully. It is found best to bring 

 beef-cattle up in the spring on the steamer, turn them out to pasture until the close of the season, in October and 

 November, and then, if the snow comes, to kill them and keep them refrigerated the rest of the year. Stock 

 cannot be profitably raised here, the proportion of severe weather annually is too great — from three to perhaps 

 six months of every year they require feeding and watering, with good shelter. To furnish an animal with hay 

 and grain up there is a costly matter, and the dampness of the growing summer season on both islands renders 

 hay-making impracticable. Perhaps a few head of hardy Siberian cattle might pick up a living on the north shore 

 of St. Paul, among the grasses and sand-dunes there, with nothing more than shelter and water given them, but 

 they would need both of those attentions. Then the care of them would hardly return expenses, as the entire 

 grazing ground could not support any number of animals. It is less than two square miles in extent, and half 

 of this area is unproductive. Then, too, a struggle for existence would reduce the flesh and vitality of these 

 cattle to so low an ebb, that it is doubtful whether they could be put through another winter alive, especially if 

 severe. I was then, and am now, strongly inclined to think, that if a few of those Siberian reindeer could be 

 brought over to St. Paul and to St. George, they would make a very successful struggle for existence, and be a 

 source of a good supply, summer and winter, of fresh meat for the agents of the government and the company who 

 may be living upon the islands. I do not think that they would be inclined to molest or visit the seal-grounds ; at 

 least, I noticed that the cattle and mules of the company running loose on St. Paul, were careful never to poke 

 around on the outskirts of a rookery, and deer wotdd be more timid and less obtrusive than our domesticated 

 animals. But I did notice on St. George that a little squad of sheep, brought up and turned out there for a 

 summer's feeding, seemed to be so attracted by the quiet calls of the pups on the rookeries, that they were drawn 

 to and remained by the seals without disturbing them at all, to their own physical detriment, for they lost better 



*Tho temerity of the fox is wonderful to contemplate, as it goes on a full run or stealthy tread up and down and along the faces of 

 almost inaccessible bluffs, in search of old and young birds and their nests and eggs, for which the "peestchee" have a keen relish. The 

 fox always brings the egg up in its mouth, and, carrying it back a few feet from the briuk of the precipice, leisurely and with gusto brea ks 

 the larger end and sucks the contents from the shell. One of the curious sights of my notice in this conuection, was the sly, artful, and 

 insidious advances of Reynard at Tolstoi Jlees, St. George, where, conspicuous and elegant iu its flufl'y white dress, it cunningly stretched 

 on its back as though dead, making no sign of life whatever, save to gently hoist its thick brush now and then ; whereupon many dull, 

 jeurious sea-birds, Graculus bicristatus, in their intense desiro to know all about it, flew in narrowing circles overhead, lower and lower, 

 closer and closer, until one of them came within the sure reach of a sudden spring and a pair of quick snapping jaws, while the gulls 

 and others, rising safe and high above, screamed out iu seeming contempt for the struggles of I he unhappy " shag ", and rendered hideous 

 approbation. 



