74 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



■worli. The knives used hy the natives for skinning are ordinary kitchen or case-handle butcher-knives. They are 

 sharpened to cutting edges as keen as razors ; but, something about the skins of the seal, perhaps flue commiuuted 

 sand along the abdomen, so dulls these knives, as the natives work, that they are constantly obliged to whet them. 



The body of the seal, preparatory to skinning, is rolled over and balanced squarely on its back ; then the 

 native makes a single swift cut through the skin down along the neck, chest, and belly, from the lower jaw to the 

 root of the tail, using, for this purpose, his long stabbing knife.* The fore- and hind-flippers are then successively 

 lifted, as the man straddles the seal and stoops down to his work over it, and a sweeping circular incision is made 

 through the skin on them just at the point where the body-fur ends; then, seizing a flap of the hide on either one 

 side or the other of the abdomen, the man proceeds with his smaller, shorter butcher-knife, rapidly to cut the skin, 

 clean and free from the body and blubber, which he rolls over and out from the hide by hauling up on it as he 

 advances with his work, standing all this time stooped over the carcass so that his hands are but slightly above it, 

 or the ground. This operation of skinning a fair-sized " holluschak " takes the best men only one minute and a 

 half; but the average time made by the gang on the ground is about four minutes to the seal. Nothing is left of 

 the skin upon the carcass, save a small patch of each upper lip on which the coarse mustache grows, the skin on 

 the tip of the lower jaw, the insignificant tail,t together with the bare hide of the flippers. 



Bluubee of fur-seal: Unpleasant odoe. — On the removal of the skin from the body of the fur seal, 

 the entire surface of the carcass is covered with a more or less dense layer, or envelope, of a soft, oily, fat blubber, 

 which in turn completely conceals the muscles or flesh of the trunk and neck; this fatty substance, which we now 

 see, resembles that met with in the seals generally everywhere, only possessing that strange peculiarity not shared 

 by any other of its kind, of being positively overbearing and offensive in odor to the unaccustomed human nostril. 

 The rotting, sloughing carcasses around about did not, when stirred up, att'ect me more unpleasantly than did 

 this strong, sickening smell of the fur-seal blubber. It has a character and appearance intermediate between those 

 belonging to the adipose tissue found on the bodies of cetacea and some carnivora. 



This continuous envelope, of blubber, to the bodies of the "holluschickie" is thickest in deposit at those points 

 upon the breast between the fore-flippers, reaching entirely around and over the shoulders, where it is from one inch 

 to a little over in depth. Upon the outer side of the chest it is not half an inch in thickness, frequently not more 

 than a quarter; and it thins out considerably as it reaches the median line of the back. The neck and head are clad 

 by an unbroken continuation of the same material, which varies from one-half to one-quarter of an inch in depth. 

 Toward the middle line of the abdominal region there is a layer of relative greater thickness. This is coextensive 

 with the sterno pectoral mass ; but it does not begin to retain its volume as it extends backward, where this 

 fatty investment of the carcass upon the loins, buttocks, and hinder limbs fades out finer than on the pectoro- 

 abdominal parts, and assumes a thickening corresponding to the dei)th on the cervical and dorsal regions. As it 



V — 



*AVhen turning the stunned and senseless carcasses, tlie only physical danger of which the sealers run the slightest risk, during the 

 whole circuit of their work, occurs thus: at this moment the prone and quivering hody of the "holluschak" is not wholly inert, perhaps, 

 though it is nine times out of ten; and, as the native takes hold of a fore-flipper to jerk the carcass over on to its back, the half-brained 

 seal rouses, snaps suddenly and viciously, often biting the hands or legs of the unwary skinners, who then come leisurely aud unconcernedly 

 up into the surgeon's office at the village, for bandages, etc. ; a few men are bitten every day or two during the season on the islands, in 

 this manner, but I have never learned of any serious result following any case. , 



The sealers, as might be expected, become exceedingly expert in keeping their knives sharp, putting edges on them as keen as razors, 

 and in an instant detect any dullness, by passing the balls 6f their thumbs over the suspected edges to the blades. 



^ The white sealers of the Antarctic always used the orthodox butchers' " steel" in sharpening their knives, but these natives never 

 have; and, proliably never will abandon those Utile whet-stoues above referred to. 



During the Russian management, and throughout the strife in killing by our own people in 1.^68, a very large number of the skins 

 were cutthrough, here aud there, by the slipping of the natives' knives, when they were taking them from the carcasses, and "flensing" 

 them from the superabundance, in spots, of blubber. These knife-cuts through the skin, no matter how slight, give great annoyance to 

 the dresser; hence they are alwajs marked down in price. The prompt scrutiny of each skin on the islands, by the agent of the Alaska 

 Commercial company, who rejects every one of them thus injured, has caused the natives to exercise greater care, and the number now so 

 damaged, every season, is absolutely trifling. 



Another source of small loss is due to a habit which the "holluschickie" have of occasionally biting one another when they are being 

 urged along in the drives, and thus crowded once in a while one upon the other ; usually these examples of "zoobiiden" are detected by 

 the natives prior to the "knocking down", .and spared; yet those which have been nipped on the chest or abdomen cannot be thus noticed; 

 and, until the skin is lifted, the diimage is not apprehended. 



t This tail of the fur-seal is just a suggestion of the .article, and that is all. Unlike the abbreviated caudal extremities of the bear or 

 the rabbit, it does not seem to be under the slightest coutroi of its owner — at least I never could see it move to any appreciable degree, when 

 the seal is in action on land. Certainly there is no service required of it, but it does appear to me rather singular that none of the 

 changeful moods of Calloyhini:s are capable of giving rise to even a tremor in its short stump of a tail. It is never raised or depressed, 

 and, in fact, amounts to a mere excresencc, which many casual observers would not notice. The shrinking, twitching movements of the 

 seal's skin, here aild there at irregular intervals, are especially noticed when that animal is asleep, so that even when awake I believe that 

 the dermatological motion is an involuntary one. The tail of the sea-lion is equally incousequential; that of the walrus, even more so, 

 while Phoca ritiilna has one a trifle longer, relatively, aud much stouter— fleshier than that of the fur-seal. 



I found that the natives here were pronounced evolutionists, as are all the many Indian tribes with which I li.ave been thrown in 

 contact during my travels from Mexico to the head of the Stickeen river. They declare that their remote ancestry undoubtedly were 

 fur-seals; indeed, there is a better showing for the brain cases of the fnr-seal over that of the monkey's skull as to weight with reference 

 to physical bulk; while theii- tails are as short or oven shorter than most of the authropoid apes. 



