THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 109 



This is an instrument, when padded with the fleshy muscular integuments peculiar to it, that renders the armature 

 of the sea-lion positively insignificant by way of comparison. Like the sea-lion, the swollen testicles are external, 

 though bunched and carried similar to those which we see on boars — not pendant. In closing the subject, I may 

 fitly call attention to an extraordinary feature of the walrus, and suggest that in the vicinity of Bristol bay and 

 south of Nunivak island, some two or three hundred miles to the eastward and southward of the place where I have 

 observed this animal, I am told that female walruses breed in large herds, accompanied by the males, as well as 

 further to the north, where they are said to be most numerous, bearing their young on the ice-floes above Bering 

 straits. If it be true, in regard to the reproduction of the walrus in the neighborhood of Bristol bay, it is important, 

 for here is a practicable point for an intelligent observer to establish himself, from which to take cognizance of 

 the life and habits of this long-known though indifferently understood animal. 



Do these seals drink ? — One word in conclusion. Returning to the seal-grounds, I have noticed whenever 

 a female seal was startled, or a herd of "holluschickie" stirred up by myself, that, in struggling to get out of my 

 way, they voided considerable urine; and, indeed, they all eject urine when excited, while some of them, here and 

 there, passed small masses of their peculiar soft excrement, which is like that dropped by calves soon afterbirth. 

 Their incessant pattering over the kauling-grouuds wipes up all traces of these excremeutitious droppings, so that 

 unless one looks closely lie will not notice the fact. The old males, when landing in spring, and during their 

 battles also, void a great deal of urine, but little or no excrement. That the seals drink or need fresh water, I 

 doubt; but they cool their mouths incessantly by swimming with them wide open through the waves, laving as it 

 were their hot throats and lips in the flood.* 



I. ILLUSTRATIVE AND SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES. 



22. THE RUSSIAN SEAL-ISLANDS, BERING AND COPPER, OR THE COMMANDER GROUP. 



Extracted from Professor NordexskiOld's Report in reference to Bering island. 

 [Translated by Capt. 6. Niebaum.] 



Arrival of Nordenskiold : Location of Bering island. — The Vega anchored on the 14th August, 1879, 

 in a rather poor, open harbor on the northwest coast of the island. Bering island is the most westerly of the 

 Aleutian islands, and is situated nearest Kamtchatka; it does not belong, nor does the neighboring Copper island, 

 to America, but to Asia, and is controlled by Russia; nevertheless, the American Alaska Company have obtained 

 the hunting privilege, and maintain here a not inconsiderable trading-station, which consists of about 300 

 inhabitants, supplying them with provisions and manufactured goods, and from them in turn receiving their labor, 

 principally rendered in taking skins of the eared-seal, or sea-bear {Otaria ursina); between 40,000 and 100,000 1 of 



* "Do these seals drink?" is a question doubtless often uppermost and suggested to the observer's eye, as he watches those animals 

 going to the water from the hauling- grounds and the rookeries; at least it was iu mine. I never could detect Callorhmus or Mumetopim 

 lapping, neither ill the fresh-water pools and lakes, nor in the brackish lagoon, or the sea; but it plunges at times into the rollers with its 

 jaws wide open as it dives, reappearing quickly in the same maimer to dip, and rise again, many times in rapid succession as it swims 

 along, the water running in little streams from the corners of the open mouth whenever the head pops above the surface. Whether this 

 action was simply to cool itself, or that of drinking, I am not prepared to assert positively. I think it was to meet both purposes of 

 refrigeration and of satisfying thirst. 



Nothing passes from the bowels or the urinary organs of these old males after they have hauled out, except their soft, paste-like fieces 

 and that urine voided within, the first forty-eight hours since landing. The "holluschickie", however, and the females give frequent 

 evidence of the regular movement of their digestive and secretive organs iu this manner, throughout the whole period of their visit to the 

 islands, especially so when they are suddenly started up to travel over the hauling-grounds to the slaughtering-fields. 



t These figures are in error ; the table given at the close of this translation will show it. It is well known that the fur-seal, as it bred, 

 was first seen and described by Stiller, who wrote his description on this island, when shipwrecked there with Bering, in 1741-42. 

 Steller's account and the stories of the survivors drew a large concourse of rapacious hunters to the Commander islands ; they appear, as 

 near as I can arrive at truths, from the scanty record, to have quickly exterminated the sea-otters, and to have killed many and ha rrassed 

 the other fur-seals entirely away from the island : su that there was an interregnum between lTt'iO and ITSli, during which time the Knssia n 

 yroinyshleniks took no fur-seals, and were utterly at loss to know whither these creatures bad lied from the islands of Berin g an d Copper. 

 AVb.cn they (the seals! begau to revisit their haunts on the Commander islands, I can find no Bpeeilic d ate; but I am inclined to believe 

 that they did not reap pear on Bering an d Copper islands to anything like the number seen by Steller, until 1-37-'qS ; perhaps have not 

 dune so limit unite recently. At least, in 1~07, the Russ ians di d not think m ore than 'JO , OOP skins could be secured there annually, while 

 they declared 100,000 could betaken readily at the Pribylovs ; again, sin ce 1867 the capacity of the Co mmander group has gradually 

 increased from 15,000 to 30,000. then to 40,0110 and 50,00(1 " holluschickie, " per annum . Now, this striking improvement is due, doubtless, to 

 the superior treatment of the whole business by the Alaska Commercial Company, which had also leased these interests from the Knssian 

 government in 1671 for a term of JO years. I think, therefore, that when the fur-seals on the Commander islands became so ruthlessly 

 hunted and harrassed shortly after Steller's observations iu 174J, then they soon repaired, or rather most of the survivors did, to tho 

 shelter aud isolation of the Pribylov group, which was wholly unknown to man ; and it remained so until 1786-'87. Then succeeded a 

 period between, up to 1 -1J-'15, when the unhappy seals had but little rest or choice between the Commander and the Pribylov islands, 

 and must have sadly diminished, as the record shows, in numbers. 



The unfortunate overland journey of Steller, which alternately starved and froze him into a low fever that ended his young and 

 promising life in a yourt on the Siberian steppes, November 12, 17 15, six years prior to the first publication of his celebrated notes on the 



n. 



