THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 163 



see much better by twilight and night than by daylight. I am not prepared to prove to the contrary, but I think 

 that the fact of his not being able to see so well himself at that hour of darkness was the true cause of most of his 

 belief in the improved nocturnal vision of the seals. 



As I write, this old Aleut, Phillip Vollkov, has passed to his final rest — "un konchielsah" winter of lS78-'79. 

 He was one of the real characters of St. Paul; he was esteemed by the whites on account of his relative intelligence, 

 and beloved by the natives, who called him their "wise man", and who exulted in his piety. Phillip, like the other 

 people there of his kind, was not much comfort to me wheu I asked questions as to the seals. He usually answered 

 important inquiries by crossing himself, and replying, "God knows." There was no appeal from this. 



M. Sullknness of old male seals [Section 10]. — The old males, when grouped together by themselves, 

 at the close of the breeding-season, indulge in no humor or frolicsome festivities whatsoever. On the contrary, they 

 treat each other with surly indifference. The mature females, however, do not appear to lose their good nature to 

 anything like so marked a degree as do their lords and masters, for they will at all seasons of their presence on the 

 islands be observed, now and then, to suddenly unbend from severe matronly gravity by coyly and amiably tickling 

 and gently teasing one another, as they rest in the harems, or later, when strolling in September. There is no sign 

 given, however, by these seal-mothers of desire or action in fondling or caressing their pups; nor do the young 

 appear to sport with any others than the pups themselves, when together. Sometimes a yearling and a five or six 

 months-old pup will have a long-continued game between themselves. They are decidedly clannish in this respect — 

 creatures of caste, like Hindoos. 



M. Leaping out of water: "Dolphin jljmps" [Section 10]. — As I never detected the sea-lions or the 

 hair-seals leaping from the water around these islauds, in those peculiar dolphin-like jumps which I have hitherto 

 described, I made a note of it early during my first season of observation, for corroboration in the next. It is 

 so : neither the sea-lion nor the hair-seal here ever leaped from the ocean in this agile and singular fashion 

 heretofore described. Allen, so conservative usually, seems, however, to have fallen into an error by reading the 

 notes of Mr. J. H. Blake, descriptive of the sea-lions of the Gallapagos islands. As Allen quotes them entire in a 

 foot-note (page 211, History of North American Pinnipeds), I am warranted in calling attention to the fact, that no 

 authentic record has as j T et been made of such peculiar swimming by Phocidcc, or the sea-lion branch of the Otariidce. 

 My notice has been called to this mistake by Professor Allen's own note, page 367, upon a quotation from my work, 

 citing Mr. Blake's notes above referred to, which are themselves very interesting, but do not even hint at a dolphin- 

 jump. 



How fast the fur-seal can swim, when doing its best, I am naturally unable to state. I do know that a squad 

 of young "holluschickie" followed the "Eeliauce", in which I was sailing, down from the latitude of the seal- 

 islands to Akootan pass with perfect ease ; playing around the vessel, while she was logging straight ahead, 14 knots 

 to the hour. 



The fur seal, the sea lion, the walrus, and the hair-seal all swim around these islands, and in these waters, 

 submerged, extended horizontally and squarely upon their stomachs. I make this note here because I am surprised 

 to read [on page G51, Allen: Hist. N. A. Pinnipeds] that the harp (hair) seal's "favorite position when swimming, as 

 affirmed by numerous observers, is on the back or side, in which position they also sleep in the water". Although 

 this is a far distant, geographically speaking, relative of the hair-seal of St. Paul island, yet the remarkable 

 difference in fashion of swimming seems hardly warranted, when the two animals are built exactly alike. Still, I 

 have no disposition to question, earnestly, the truth of the statement, inasmuch as I have learned of so many very 

 striking radical differences in habits of animals as closely related, as to pause, ere seriously doubting this assertion 

 that a harp-seal's favorite way in swimming is to lie upon its back when so doing. It is simply an odd contradiction 

 to the method employed by the hair-seals of the North Pacific and of Bering sea. 



While I am unable to prove that the fur-seal possesses the power to swim to a very great depth, by actual tests 

 instituted, yet I am free to say that it certainly can dive to the uttermost depths, where its food-fish are known to 

 live in the ocean; it surely gives full and ample evidence of possessing the muscular power for that enterprise. 

 Iu this connection, it is interesting to cite the testimony of Mr. P. Borthen, the proprietor of the Fro islands, a group 

 of small islets off Troudhjems fiord, in Norway; this gentleman has had an opportunity of watching the gray-seal 

 [Haliclicerus grypns) as it bred and rested on these rocks during an extended period of time. Among many 

 interesting notes as to the biology of this large hair-seal, he says, "As a proof that they (the seals) fetch their food 

 from a considerable depth, it is related that a few years ago a young one was found caught by one of the hooks of a 

 fishing line that was placed at a depth of between 70 and SO fathoms, on the outer side of the islands. Gray-seals 

 have several times been seen to come up to the sunace with hugs (Molva vulgaris) and other deep-water fishes in 

 their mouths, such fishes seldom or never found at a less depth than between 00 and 70 fathoms."— [Robert Collett 

 on the Grati Seal, rroc. Zool. Soc, London: Part ii, 1881, p. 387.] 



©. Monstrosities among the seals. — Touching this question of monstrosities, I was led to examine a 

 number of alleged examples presented to my attention by the natives, who took some interest, in their sluggish way, 

 as to what I was doing here. They brought me an albino fur-seal pup, nothing else, and gravely assured me that 

 they knew it owed its existence to the fecundation of a sea-lion cow by a fur-seal bull ; "if not so, how could it get 

 that color?" I was also confronted with a specimen — a full and finely grown four-year-old CaUorhiitits which had, 



