THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 29 



free again for another similar motion. This action of Phoca is effected so continuously and so rapidly, that in 

 attempting to head off a young "Nearhpah" from the water, at English bay, I was obliged to leave a brisk walk 

 and take to a dog trot to do it. The hind-feet are not used when exerted in this rapid movement at all; they are 

 dragged along in the wake of the body, perfectly limp and motionless. But they do use those posterior parts, 

 however, when leisurely climbing up and over rocks undisturbed, or playing one with another; still it is always a 

 weak, trembling terrestrial effort, and particularly impotent and clumsy. In their swift swimming the hind-feet 

 of PkocidcB evidently do all the work; the reverse is the characteristic of the Otariidce. 



These remarks of mine, it should be borne in mind, apply directly to Phoca vitulina, and I presume indirectly 

 with equal force to all the rest of its more important generic kindred, be they as large as Phoca barbata or less. 



This hair-seal is found around these islands at all seasons of the year, but in very small numbers. I have never 

 seen more than twenty-five or thirty at any one time, and I am told that its occidental distribution, although 

 everywhere found, above and below, from the arctic to the tropics, and especially general over the North Pacific 

 coast, nowhere exhibits any great number at any one place; but we know that it and its immediate kiudred 

 form a vast majority of the multitudinous seal-life peculiar to our North Atlantic shores, ice floes, and contiguous 

 waters. The scarcity of this species, and of all its generic allies, in the waters of the Pacific, is notable as compared 

 with those of the circumpolar Atlantic, where these hair-seals are the seals of commerce, and are found in such 

 immense numbers between Greenland and Labrador, and theoce to the eastward at certain seasons* of every year, 

 that employment is given to a fleet of .about sixty sailing and steam vessels, which annually go forth t from St. John, 

 Newfoundland, and elsewhere, fitted for seal-fishing, taking in all their voyages over 300,000 of these animals each 

 season ; the principal object of value, however, is the oil rendered from them, the skins having very small commercial 

 importance. % Touching oil, etc., a business digest of this subject, as it refers to the seal-islands of Alaska, will be 

 found in this memoir, in that portion descriptive of the methods employed by working the hauliug-grounds of the 

 "holluschiekie". 



9. LIFE-HISTORY OF THE FUR-SEAL. 



Description of an adult male. — The fur-seal, Callorhinvs ursinus, which repairs to these islands to 

 breed and to shed its hair and fur, in numbers that seem almost fabulous, is the highest organized of all the 

 Pinnipedia, and, indeed, for that matter, when land and water are weighed in the account together, there is no other 

 animal known to man which cau be truly, as it is, classed superior, from a purely physical point of view. Certainly 

 there are few, if any, creatures in the animal kingdom that can be said to exhibit a higher order of instinct, 

 approaching even our intelligence. 



I wish to draw attention to a specimen of the finest of this race — a male in the flush and prime of his first 

 maturity, six or seven years old, and full grown. When it comes up from the sea early in the spring, out to its station 

 for the breeding season, we have au animal before us that will measure 6J to 7-£ feet in length from tip of nose to 

 the end of its abbreviated, abortive tail. It will weigh at least 400 pounds, and I have seen older specimens much 

 more corpulent, which, in my best judgment, could not be less than 600 pounds in weight. The head of this 

 animal now before us, appears to be disproportionately small in comparison with the immensely thick neck and 

 shoulders; but, as we come to examine it we will find it is mostly all occupied by the brain. The light framework 

 of the skull supports an expressive pair of large bluish hazel eyes; alternately burning with revengeful, passionate 

 light, then suddenly changing to the toues of tenderness and good nature. It has a muzzle and jaws of about the 

 same size and form observed in any full-blooded Newfoundland dog, with this difference, that the lips are not 

 flabby and overhanging; they are as firmly lined and pressed against one another as our own. The upper lips 

 support a yellowish white and gray moustache, composed of long, stiff bristles, and when it is not torn out and 

 broken off in combat, it sweeps down and over the shoulders as a luxuriant plume. Look at it as it comes 

 leisurely swimming on toward the laud; see how high -above the water it carries its head, and how deliberately it 

 surveys the beach, after having stepped upon it (for it may be truly said to step with its fore-flippers, as they 

 regularly alternate when it moves up), carrying the head well above them, erect and graceful, at least three feet 



'March and April. t Sailing on the 10th of March, simultaneously: the Canadian law prohibits earlier work in this respect. 



{An excellent, and, as far as I know, a correct description of this seal-fishery in the North Atlantic has been published by Michael 

 Carroll, in his Seal and Herring Fisheries of Newfoundland. This gentleman writes in a manner indicative of much familiarity with the 

 business, though it is to be regretted that his observations were not more systematized and concentrated. Mr. Carroll, when he 

 published his work in 1S73, had enjoyed a personal experience of over fifty years in the hair-seal hunting of the North Atlantic, and this 

 report is, therefor,-, perhaps the best exposition of the habit ami condition of those Phocidce, that is extant; at least I should judge so. 

 Robert Brown, in 1868 (Proc. Zool. Society, London, pp. 413—418), gives a graphic sketch of the life of the Greenland hair-seal, while 

 Ludwig Kmnlein, in "Bulletin No. 15" of the United States National Museum, 1879, presents altogether the most interesting and valuable 

 biology of the hair-seals in the waters of Cumberland sound that has as yet been printed. Allen, in his History of the North American 

 Pinnipeds, 1880, has, with painstaking labor, carefully compiled the pertinent remarks of a whole army of lesser authorities upon the 

 doing and well-being oJ the Phocidw, and has arranged them in his memoir so that they appear to the best advantage, Carroll's report 

 is exceedingly interesting, and could lie be induced to rewrite his notes, systematising them, or permit some naturalist to do so who might 

 draw out from him information on important points, now hidden, the result undoubtedly would accrue greatly to the benefit ot all 

 concerned, and cause him to reap a fitting recognition of his knowledge of the subject, which seems to be very full and exhaustive, as far 

 as expressed by himself. 



