SECTION II. 



THE HAULING GROUNDS OF THE FUR SEAL ON THE PRIBILOV 



ISLANDS OF ALASKA— THEIR AREA, POSITION, AND 



CONDITION IN 1872-1874 AND 1890. 



THE HAULING GBOUNDS OF THE FUR SEAL, 



In 1872-1874 these fields of seal life on the Pribilov Islands were in 

 themselves quite as impressive and interesting as the great rookeries 

 then were. To day (189(>) it is a difficult matter to say where a single 

 well-defined hauling ground on either island exists of more than slight 

 extent in superficial area — those broad acres of 1871 upon which not even 

 a vestige of vegetable growth could live, owing to the tireless pattering of 

 fur-seal fiippers — those clean-swept fiekls are now mossy, grass-grown, 

 and tlecked with indigenT)us flowering plants clear down to the water's 

 edge, or up to very margins of the rookery grounds, upon which a scanty 

 remnant of that swarming host of surplus male seal life, which so aston- 

 ished me in J 872, now lands ! It hauls there to-day for quiet and protec- 

 tion — instinctively does so, as the last stand for self-preservation left for 

 it on these islands during the past six years. 



In 1872 there was a marked distinction between the "rookeries,"' or 

 breeding grounds, and the " ezvairie,"^ or hauling grounds ; not iu name, 

 not on paper, as it literally is to-day, but in reality then, by the testimony 

 of those grounds and the life thereon itself. I gave the following descrip- 

 tion of the Pribilov hauling grounds and of that life characteristic of 

 them, in 1874: [^lonograph Seal Islands of Alaska : 1881, p. 43.] 



THE HAULING GROUNDS AND THEIR OCCUPANTS. 



I now call tho attention of the reader to another very remarkable featnre in the 

 economy of the seal life on these islands. The great herds of holhischickie, ' num- 

 bering about one-third, ])erhap8, of the whole aggregate of near 5,000,000 seals known 

 to the Pribilov group, are never allowed by the " see-catchie," under the ])ain of 

 frightful mutilation or death, to pnc their Hijipers on or near tlie rookeries. 



By reference to my map it will be observed that I have located a large extent of 

 ground, markeilly so on 8t. Paul, as that occupied as the seals' hauling grounds. 

 This area, in fact, represents those portions of the island upon which the hoUua- 

 chickie roam in their heavy squadrons, wearing oft' and polishing the surface of the 

 soil, stripping every foot, which is indicated on the chart as such, of its vegetation 

 and mosses, leaving the margin as sharply defined on the blufty uplands and sandy 

 flats as it is on the map itself. 



The reason that so much more land is covered by the holhischickie than by the 

 breeding seals — ten times as much, at least — is due to the fact that though not as 

 numerous, perhaps, as the breeding seals, they are tied down to nothing, so to speak, 

 are wholly irresponsible, and roam hither and thither as caprice and the weather 

 may dictate. Thus they wear oft" and rub down a much larger area than the rookery 



' "Rookery," an old sealer's term, derived from the swarming, noisy roosts of the 

 rook-bird in England. 



2"Ezvairie," a Russian equivalent of "hanlinf/ up;" means literally a " coming 

 out" or "coming up." The natives call the rookeries " layinff out" places or "laas- 

 bustchie," and the hauling grounds, "ezvairie." 



"The Russian term "holluschickie" or "bachelors" is very appropriate, and is 

 usually employed. 



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