COUNTER-CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 229 



ground, then to a dense herding, wliere they are continually in motion 

 and crowding each other, thence to an intense excitement on the kill- 

 ing ground, and finally, in a condition little better than madness 

 rushing into icy-cold water. Uncivilized or partly-civilized man has 

 no pity for dumb brutes, and as these drives are conducted entirely 

 by the natives, who prefer indolence in the village to the discomforts 

 of a drive in the fog and rain, it follows that the seals are olten 

 driven much faster than they should be, and absolutely without 

 thought or care. But this is not all. The seals that are spared soon 

 haul-out again near a rookery, and perhaps the very next day are 

 obliged to repeat the process, and again and again throughout the 

 season, unless in the meantime they have crawled out on a beach to 

 die, or have sunk exhausted to the bottom. The deaths of these seals 

 are directly caused, as I shall explain, and, bo far as I am aware, it is 

 mentioned now for the first time. 



MR. PALMER ON ACTUAL CAUSE OP DEATH OF DRIVEN 



SEALS. 



Mr. Palmer then states tliat he believes death to result 

 chiefly from the cousumption of the natural store of fat 

 while the animal is too exhausted to go in search of food. 

 He continues : 



I remember looking with great curiosity for the cause of death in 

 the first seal I found stranded on the beach. Externally there was 

 nothing to indicate it, but the first stroke of the knife revealed 

 instantly what I am confident has been the cause of death of count- 

 less thousands of fur-seals. It had been chilled to death; not a trace 

 remained of the fat that had once clothed its body and protected the 

 vital organs within. ... I opened many after this, and always 

 discovered the same, but sometimes an additional cause, a fractured 

 skull perhaps. I have even noted those left behind in a drive, and 

 watched them daily, with the same result in many cases. At first 

 they would revel in the ponds or wander among the sand dunes, but 

 in a few days their motions became distinctly slower, the curvature 

 of the spine became lessened; eventually the poor brutes 

 268 would drag their hind flippers as they moved, and in a few 

 days were Ijecome food for the foxes. In every case the fat had 

 disappeared. 



« jf * * » 



During the eight years' minority of the few male seals that have 

 escaped their enemies it is safe, I think, to assume that at least four 

 summers were spent in getting an experience of the drives. Does 

 any one think that they were then capable of filling their proper 

 functions on the rookeries? 



The natives have been provided with whistles, and when a boat 

 finds itself near a rookery (and a pretence for its presence is easily 

 found) good use is made of them, with a consequent confusion among 

 the seals, and a probable increase in the next morning's drive. And 

 yet a stranger on the islands is bamboozled with the information that 

 his presence a few yards from the village is fraught with great dan- 

 ger to the Company's interests. 



After speaking of the care exercised in regard to the 

 driving of seals upon the Kussiaii (Commander) Islands, 

 Mr. Palmer contrasts the state of affairs as observed by 

 him on the Pri.byloff Islands as follows : 



On the American side, on the contrary, the seals are driven as fast 

 as possible, the only ones being weeded out being those too weak to 

 go further, while of those rounded up on the killing-ground by far 

 the greater number are allowed to escape. Out of a drive of 1,103 

 counted by me only 120 were killed; the rest were released. 



