FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 8-^ 



more, clatter a few boues with a sbout along the line, and the seal 

 shamble begins again — their march to death and the markets of the 

 world is taken up anew. 



DOCILITY OF FUR SEALS WHEN DRIVEN. 



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 Hock 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 standstill 

 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 that time of its destruction at the hands 

 of the sealing gang. 



This disposition of the old seals to fight rather than endure the pant- 

 ing 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 return 

 ing 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. 



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 3 and 4 year olds, the rest being 2year olds principally, 

 and a very few at wide intervals of 5-year-olds, the yearlings seldom 

 ever getting mixed up prior to the 20th July, annually. 



METHOD OF 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 i)ausing to catch their breath and 

 umke, as it were, a })laintive survey and mute protest. Every now and 

 then a seal will get weak in the lumbar region, then drag its posteriors 

 along for a short distance, finally drop breathless and exhausted, quiv- 

 ering and panting, not to revive for hours, days, i)erhaps, and often 

 never. During the dryest driving days, or those days when the tem- 

 perature does not combine with wet fog to keep tlie path moist and cool, 

 quite a large number of the weakest animals in the drove will be thus 

 laid out and left on the track. If one of these prostrate seals is not too 

 much heated at the time, the native driver usually taps the beast over 

 the head and removes its skin.' 



•Thefursenl, likeallofthepinnipeds, has no sweat glands. Hence, when it is heated, 

 it cools off b.Y the same i>roces8 of panting which is so characteristic of the dog, 

 accompanied hj the fanning that I have hitherto fully described. The heavy breath- 

 ing and low grunting of a "tired drove of seals on a warmer day than usual, can be 

 heard several hundred yards away. It is surprising how ([uickly the hair and fur 

 will come out of the skin oF a bh)od-heated seal— literally rubs off bodily at a touch 

 of the linger. A hne specimen of a o year-old holliischickie fell in its tracks at the 

 head of the Lagoon wlnle being driven to the village killing grounds. I asked that 

 it be skinned with special reference to mounting. Accordingly a native was sent 

 for, who was on the spot, knife in hand, within less than thirty minutes from tlie 

 moment that this seal fell in the road : yet, soon after he had got fairly to work, patches 

 of the fur and hair came off here and there, wherever he chanced to clutch the skin. 



