336 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



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 St. Paul and St. George up 

 from the hauling-grounds the natives make, as far as practicable, a 

 selection only from males of that age. It is quite impossible, how- 

 ever, to get them all of one age without an extraordinary amount of 

 stir and bustle, which the Aleutes do not like to precipitate ; hence 

 the drive will be found to consist usually of a bare majority of 

 thx-ee and four-year-olds, the rest being two-year-olds principally, 

 and a very few, at wide intervals, five-year-olds, the yearlings sel- 

 dom ever getting mixed up in it. 



As this drove progresses along that path to those slaughtering- 

 grounds, the seals all move in about the same way ; they go ahead 

 with a kind of walking stej:) and a sliding, shambling gallop. The 

 progression of the whole caravan is a succession of starts, spas- 

 modic and irregular, made every few minutes, the seals pausing to 

 catch their breath, making, as it were, a plaintive 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, 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 fog to keep the earth 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 I'emoves its skin. 



This prostration from exertion will always happen, no matter 

 how carefully they are driven ; and in the longer drives, such' as 

 two and a half and five miles from Zapadnie on the west, or Pola- 

 vina on the north, to the village at St. Paul, as much as three or 

 four per cent, of the whole drive will be thus dropped on the road ; 

 hence I feel satisfied, from my observation and close attention to 

 this feature, that a considerable number of those that are thus re- 

 jected fi'om the drove, and are able to rally and return to the water, 

 die subsequently from internal injuries sustained on the trip, 

 superinduced by this over-exertion. I therefore think it highly 

 improper and impolitic to extend di'ives of the " holluschickie " 

 over any distance on St. Paul Island exceeding a mile, or a mile 

 and a half — it is better for all parties concerned, and the business 



