364 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



The "holluschickie" are urged along over the path leading to the killing grounds with very 

 little trouble, and require only three or four men to guide and secure as many thousand at a time. 

 They are permitted to frequently halt and cool off, as heating them injures their fur. These seal- 

 halts on the road always impressed me with a species of sentimentalism and regard for the creatures 

 themselves. The men dropping back for a few moments, the awkward shambling and scuffling of 

 the march at once ceases, and the seals stop in their tracks to fan themselves with their hind-flip- 

 pers, while their heaving flanks give rise to subdued panting sounds. As soon as they apparently 

 cease to pant for want of breath, and are cooled off comparatively, the natives step up once more, 

 clatter a few bones with a shout along the line, and the seal-shamble begins again their march to 

 death and the markets of the world is taken up anew. 



I was also impressed by the singular docility and amiability of these animals when driven 

 along the road ; they never show fight any more than a flock of sheep would do ; if, however, a 

 few old seals get mixed in, they usually get so weary that they prefer to come to a stand-still and 

 tight rather than move ; otherwise no sign whatever of resistance is made by the drove from the 

 moment it is intercepted, and turned up from the hauling grounds, to the time of its destruction at 

 the hands of the sealing gang. 



This disposition of the old seals to fight rather than endure the panting torture of travel is of 

 great advantage to all parties concerned ; for they are worthless commercially, and the natives are 

 only too glad to let them drop behind, where they remain unmolested, eventually returning to the 

 sea. The fur on them is of little or no value, their under wool being very much shorter, coarser, 

 and more scant than in the younger; especially so on the posterior parts along the median line of 

 the back. 



This change for the worse or deterioration of the pelage of the fur-seal takes place, as a rule, 

 in the fifth year of their age ; it is thickest and finest in texture during the third and fourth year of 

 life, hence, in driving the seals on Saint Paul and Saint George up from the hau ling-grounds the 

 natives make as far as practicable a selection from males of that age. 



It is quite impossible, however, to get them all of one age without an extraordinary amount 

 of stir and bustle, which the Aleuts do not like to precipitate ; hence the drive will be found to 

 consist usually of a bare majority of three and four year olds, the rest being two-year-olds princi- 

 pally, and a very few, at wide intervals, five-year-olds, the yearlings seldom ever getting mixed up. 



METHOD OP LAND TRAVEL. As the drove progresses along the path to the slaughtering- 

 grounds, the seals all move in about the same way; they go ahead with a kind of walking step 

 and a sliding, shambling gallop. The progression of the whole caravan is a succession of starts, 

 spasmodic and irregular, made every few minutes, the seals pausing to catch their breath, and 

 make, as it were, a plaintive survey and mute protest. Every now and then a seal will get weak 

 in the lumbar region, then drag his posteriors along for a short distance, finally drop breathless 

 and exhausted, quivering and panting, not to revive for hours days, perhaps and often never. 

 During the driest driving days, or those days when the temperature does not combine with wet 



sometimes in a few hours after the driving of every seal from Zoltoi sands over to the killing fields adjacent, those 

 dunes and the beach in question would be swarming anew with fresh arrivals. If, however, the weather is abnor- 

 mally warm and sunny, during its prevalence, even if for several consecutive days, no seals to speak of will haul out 

 on the emptied space ; indeed, if these "holluschickie" had not been taken away by man from Zoltoi or any other 

 hauling ground on the islands when " tayopli" weather prevailed, most of such seals would have vacated their terres- 

 trial loafing places pro tern, for the cooler embraces of the sea. 



The importance of clearly understanding this fact as to the readiness of the " holluschickie " to haul promptly 

 out on steadily "swept" ground, provided the weather is inviting, is very great; because, when not understood, it 

 was deemed necessary, even as late as the season of 1872, to " rest" the hauling grounds near the village (from which all 

 the driving has been made since), and make trips to far-away Polavina and distant Zapadnie an unnecessary expen- 

 diture of human time, and a causeless infliction of physical misery upon phocine backs and flippers. 



