366 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



arm where they are grasped by the hands. Each native also has his stabbing-knife, his skinning- 

 knife, and his whetstone ; these are laid upon the grass convenient, when the work of braining or 

 knocking the seals down is in progress. This is all the apparatus which they have for killing 

 and skinning. 



THE KILLING GANG AT WORK. When the men gather for work they are under the control of 

 their chosen foremen or chiefs ; usually, on Saint Paul, divided into two working parties at the 

 village, and a sub-party up at Northeast Point, where another salt-house and slaughtering-field is 

 established. At the signal of the chief the work of the day begins by the men stepping into the 

 drove, corraled on the flats ; and, driving out from it one hundred or one hundred and fifty seals 

 at a time, make what they call a " pod," which they surround in a circle, huddling the seals one 

 on another as they narrow it down, until they are directly within reach and under their clubs. 

 Then the chief, after he has cast his experienced eye over the struggling, writhing "kautickie" in 

 the center, passes the word that such and such a seal is bitten, that such and such a seal is too 

 young, that such and such a seal is too old ; the attention of his men being called to these points, he 

 gives the word " strike," and instantly the heavy clubs come down all around, and every one that 

 is eligible is stretched out stunned and motionless, in less time, really, than I take to tell it. 

 Those seals spared by order of the chief now struggle from under and over the bodies of their 

 insensible companions, and pass, hustled off by the natives, back to the sea.* 



METHOD OF ALEUTS IN SKINNING FUK-SEALS. The clubs are dropped, the men seize the 

 prostrate seals by the hind-flippers, and drag them out, so they are spread on the ground without 

 touching each other ; then every sealer takes his knife and drives it into the heart at a point 

 between the fore- flippers of each stunned form; the blood gushes forth, and the quivering of the 

 animal presently ceases. A single stroke of a heavy oak bludgeon, well and fairly delivered, will 

 crush in at once the slight, thin bones of a fur-seal's skull, and lay the creature out almost lifeless. 

 These blows are, however, usually repeated two or three times with each animal, but they are 

 very quickly done. The bleeding, which is immediately effected, is so speedily undertaken in 

 order that the strange reaction, which the sealers call " heating," shall be delayed for half an hour 

 or so, or until the seals can all be drawn out, and laid in some disposition for skinning. 



I have noticed that within less than thirty minutes from the time a perfectly sound seal was 

 knocked down, it had so " heated," owing to the day being warmer and drier than usual, that, 

 when touching it with my foot, great patches of hair and fur scaled ofl. This is a rather exception 

 ally rapid metamorphosis it will, however, take place in every instance within an hour or an 

 hour and a half, on these warm days, after the first blow is struck, and the seal is quiet in death ; 



* The aim and force with which the native directs his blow determines the death of the seal ; if struck direct 

 and violently, a single stroke is enough ; the seals' heads are stricken so hard sometimes that those crystalline lenses 

 to their eyes fly out from the orbital sockets like hail-stones, or little pebbles, and frequently struck me sharply in 

 the face, or elsewhere, while I stood near by watching the killing-gang at work. 



A singular lurid green light suddenly suffuses the eye of the fur-seal at intervals when it is very much excited, as 

 the " podding " for the clubbers is in progress; and, at the moment -when last raising its head it sees the uplifted 

 bludgeons on every hand above, fear seems then for the first time to possess it and to instantly gild its eye in this 

 strange manner. When the seal is brained in this state of optical coloration, I have noticed that the opalescent 

 tinting remained well defined for many hours to a whole day after death ; these remarkable flashes are very char- 

 acteristic to the eyes of the old males during their hurly-burly on the rookeries, but never appear in the younger 

 classes unless as just described, as far as I could observe. 



This tenderness and extreme susceptibility of the whole seal-tribe, save the walrus, to a blow upon the ethmoid 

 processes, was well understood by the Ancients, and is thus expressed by them : 



Non harni penetrant phocas, stevique tridentes 

 In capnt incntient, et circum tempora pulsat. 

 Nam snbita percnnt capitas per vuluer.i morte. 



Oppian. 



