AMPHIBIAN MILLIONS. 323 



pice. I have been repeatedly astonished at an amazing power 

 possessed by the fur-seal of resistance to shocks which would cer- 

 tainly kill any other animal. To explain clearly, the reader will 

 observe by reference to the maps that there are a great many cliffy 

 places between the rookeries on the shore-lines of the islands. 

 Some of these bluffs are more than one hundred feet in abrupt ele- 

 vation above the surf and rocks awash below. Frequently " hollu- 

 schickie," in ones, or twos, or threes, will stray far away back from 

 the great masses of their kind and fall asleep in the thick grass and 

 herbage which covers these mural reaches. Sometimes they will 

 repose and rest very close to the edge, and then as you come 

 tramping along you discover and startle them and yourself alike. 

 They, blinded by their first transports of alarm, leap promptly over 

 the brink, snorting, coughing, and spitting as they go. Curiously 

 peering after them and looking down upon the rocks, fifty to one 

 hundred feet below, instead of seeing their stunned and motionless 

 bodies, you will invariably catch sight of them rapidly scrambling 

 into the water, and, when in it, swimming off like arrows from the 

 bow. Three " holluschickie " were thus inadvertently surprised by 

 me on the edge of the west face to Otter Island. They plunged over 

 from an elevation there not less than two hundred feet in sheer de- 

 scent, and I distinctly saw them fall, in scrambling, whirling evo- 

 lutions, down, thumping upon the rocky shingle beneath, from 

 which they bounded as they struck, like so many rubber balls. 

 Two of them never moved after the rebound ceased ; but the third 

 one reached the water and swam away swift as a bird on the wing. 



While they seem to escape without bodily injury incident to 

 such hard falls as ensue from dropping fifty or sixty feet upon peb- 

 bly beaches and rough boulders below, and even greater elevations, 

 yet I am inclined to think that some internal injuries are necessa- 

 rily sustained in almost every case, which soon develop and cause 

 death. The excitement and the vitality of the seal at the moment 

 of the terrific shock are able to sustain and conceal a real injury 

 for the time being. 



Driving the " holluschickie " on St. George, owing to the rela- 

 tive scantiness of hauling area for those animals there, and conse- 

 quent small numbers found upon these grounds at any one time, is 

 a very arduous series of daily exercises on the part of the natives 

 who attend to it. Glancing at the map, the marked considerable 

 distance over an exceedingly rough road will be noticed between 



