356 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



Aleutian chain, 100 or 200 miles away from here, as the case may be, or to the southward of that 

 archipelago, is the shiest and wariest creature your ingenuity can define. Happy are you in get- 

 ting but a single glimpse of him, first; you will never see him after, until he hauls out, and winks 

 and blinks across Lukannon sands.* 



But the companionship and the exceeding number of the seals, when assembled together annu- 

 ally, makes them bold ; largely due, perhaps, to their fine instinctive understanding, dating, probably, 

 back many years, seeming to know that man, after all, is not wantonly destroying them, and what 

 he takes is from the ravenous maw only of the killer- whale or the saw-tipped teeth of a Japan shark. 

 As they sleep in the water, ofl' the Straits of Fuca, and the northwest coast as far as Dixon's Sound, 

 the Indians belonging to that region surprise them with spears and rifle, capturing quite a num- 

 ber every year. 



ENCYSTED BULLETS, ARROWS, &o., IN PUB-SEALS. On the killing grounds at Saint George, 

 in June, 1873, the natives would frequently call my attention to seals that they were skinning, in 

 the hides of which buckshot were embedded and encysted just under the skin in the blubber. From 

 one animal I picked out fifteen shot, and the holes which they must have made in the skin were so 

 entirely healed over as not to leave the faintest trace of a scar. These buckshot were undoubtedly 

 received from the natives of the northwest coast, anywhere between the Straits of Fuca and the 

 Aleutian Islands. The number taken by these hunters on the high seas is, however, inconsidera- 

 ble ; the annual average, perhaps, of five thousand skins is a fair figure some seasons more, some 

 seasons less.t The natives have also found on the killing grounds, in the manner just indicated, 

 specimens of the implements employed by the Aleuts to the southward, such as the tips of birds' 

 spears and bone lances, comfortably encysted in the blubber under the skin ; but only very small 

 fragments are found, because I believe that any larger pieces would create suppuration and slough 

 out of the wounds. J 



* When fur-seals were noticed, by myself, far away from these islands, at sea, I observed that then they were as shy 

 and as wary as the most timorous animal which, in dreading man's proximity, could be sinking instantly on appre- 

 hending the approach or presence of the ship, seldom to reappear to my gaze. But, when gathered in such immense 

 numbers at the Pribylov Islands, they are suddenly metamorphosed into creatures wholly indifferent to my person. 

 It must cause a very curious sentiment in the mind of him who conies for the first time, during the summer season, to 

 the Island of St. Paul; where, when the landing boat or lighter carries him ashore from the vessel, the whole short 

 marine journey is enlivened by the gambols and aquatic evolutions of fur-seal convoys to the "Bidarrah," which 

 sport joyously and fearlessly round and round his craft, as she is rowed lustily ahead by the natives ; the fur-seals, 

 then, of all classes, "holluschickie" principally, pop their dark heads up out of the sea, rising neck and shoulders 

 erect above the surface, to peer and ogle at him and at his boat, diving quickly to reappear just ahead or right behind, 

 hardly beyond striking, distance from the oars ; these gymnastics of Callorhinua are not wholly performed thus in 

 silence, for it usually snorts and chuckles with hearty reiteration. 



The sea-lions up here also manifest much the same marine interest, and give the voyager an exhibition quite 

 similar to the one which I have just spoken of, when a small boat is rowed in the neighborhood of its shore rookery ; 

 it is not, however, so bold, confident, and social as the fur-seal under the circumstances, and utters only a short, stilled 

 growl of surprise, perhaps ; its mobility, however, of vocalization is sadly deficient when compared with the scope 

 and compass of its valuable relative's poly glottis. 



The hair-seals (P. vitulina) around these islands never approached our boats in this manner, and I never caught 

 more than a furtive glimpse of their short, bull-dog heads. 



The walrus (Romarus obeeus) also, like Phoca vitulina, gave undoubted evidence of sore alarm over the presence 

 of my boat and crew anywhere near its proximity in similar situations, only showing itself once or twice, perhaps, at 

 a safe distance by elevating nothing but the extreme tip of its muzzle and its bleared popping eyes above the water; 

 it uttered no sound except a dull, muffled grunt, or else a choking, gurgling bellow. 



t See report, in a subsequent chapter, by James G. Swan, on Fur Sealing at Cape Flattery, Straits of Fuca. 



} Touching this matter of the approximate numbers of fur seals which are annually slain in the open sea, straits, 

 and estuaries of Bering and the North Pacific Oceans, I have, necessarily, no definite data upon which to base a calcu- 

 lation; but, such as I have points to the capture every year of one thousand to one thousand four hundred young fur- 

 seals in the waters of Oomnak Pass, and as many in the straits adjoining Borka Village, by tin- resident Aleuts ; these 

 are the only two points throughout the entire Aleutian chain and the peninsula where any Callurliiinis is taken by the 

 natives, except an odd example now and then elsewhere. On the northwest eoast, between San Francisco and Prince 

 William's Sound, the fur-seal is only apprehended, to any extent, at two points, viz, oft' the Straits of Fuea, 10 to 20 



