SEAL LIFE ON THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 149 



partly for the lowering of the standard weight ol skins in 1888. The 

 season of IS!>1 showed that male seals had certainly been in suth'cient 

 number the year before, because the pups on the rookeries were as 

 many as should be for the number of cows landing, the ratio being the 

 same as in former years. Then, too, there was a surplus of vigorous 

 bulls in 1S{1 who could obtain no cows. Kvery care is taken in driving 

 the seals from the hauling to the killing grounds, and during the regu- 

 lar killing season of June and July there are no females driven, because 

 at this season they are on the breeding rookeries and do not intermingle 

 with the young males. If occasionally one does happen to be in the 

 drive great care is taken not to injure her ; the law prohibiting the kill- 

 ing of the female seal is well understood by the natives, and they are 

 thoroughly in sympathy with it. Even were I to request them to kill 

 a female seal they would refuse to do it, and would immediately report 

 me to the Government agent. I have known an occasional one to be 

 killed by accident during the food drives late in the season, when the 

 males and females intermingle on the hauling grounds, but the clubber 

 was always severely rebuked by the chief for his carelessness, as well 

 as by the Government and company officers. 



My observation is that the number of female seals killed on the 

 islands from all causes is too insignificantly small to be noticed. The 

 longest drives made on St. George Island are from Starry Arteel and 

 Great Eastern rookeries, and they are h ss than 3 miles long. Drives 

 from these rookeries require from four to six hours, according to the 

 weather. At Zapadnie rookery, on St. George, the drive to the killing 

 grounds is less than a mile, the seals are now being killed there instead 

 of being driven across the island as they were prior to 1878, when it 

 took three days to make the journey. There is now a salt house at 

 Zapadnie, at which the skins are salted as soon as taken. The killing 

 grounds on both islands are all situated within a very short distance 

 from the shore, and seals not suitable to be killed, or that are turned 

 out for any cause, immediately go into the water, and, after sporting 

 around for an hour or two, they return to the hauling grounds, and to 

 all appearances they are as unconcerned and careless of the presence 

 of man as they were before they were driven to the killing grounds. 

 I have often observed that the seals when on the islands do not take 

 fright easily at the presence of man; and the natives go among them 

 with impunity. They will go into a herd of seals on the hauling 

 grounds and quietly separate them into as many divisions and subdivi- 

 sions as is necessary before driving them to the killing grounds. At 

 the killing grounds they are again divided into bunches or "pods" of 

 20 or 30 each more reaolily than the same number of domestic animals 

 could be handled under the same circumstances. 



The bulls on the rookeries will not only stand their ground against 

 the approach of man, but will become' the aggressors if disturbed. 

 Pups are tame and very playful when young, and previous to 1891, 

 when it was the practice to kill 3,000 or 4,000 for natives' food in 

 November, thousands of them were picked up and handled to determine 

 sex, for only the males were allowed to be killed. Hair seal and seal 

 lions haul out on the islands and are seldom disturbed, yet they will 

 plunge into the water at once should they discover anyone upon their 

 rookeries. But it is not so with the fur seal. They seem at home on 

 the rookeries and hauling grounds, and they show a degree of domestica- 

 tion seldom found among similar animals. At Northeast Point rookery, 

 on St. Paul Island, the longest drive is 2 miles. In former times the 

 Eussians used to drive from this rookery to St. Paul village, a distance 



