200 



NATURE 



\June 29, 1882 



This shows the increased ability and consequent celerity 

 of action among the natives. 



Here it may be mentioned that by an Act of Congress 

 the exclusive right of taking a certain number of fur seals 

 every year for a period of twenty years on these islands 

 was granted to the Alaskan Commercial Company of San 

 Francisco, subject to certain reservations and conditions. 

 The Company seem to have done far more than they 

 were actually by law required, and the benefit to the 

 people has been no less great than to the Company ; and 

 where it was simply impossible under the old state of 

 things to collect the lawful quota of 100 poo seals' skins 

 annually in less than from three to four working months, 

 it is now done by the same amount of hands in less than 

 thirty days, and so the whole of the skins are preserved 

 at their prime, and it is rare that any of them are unfit to 

 be sent to London, whereas in comparatively recent years, 

 often as many as three-fourths were rejected ; comment 

 on such an altered state of things is needless. Here it 

 may be interesting to note that almost all the raw seal 

 hides are sent to London, from whence, when dressed, 

 they are distributed all over the civilised world where furs 

 are worn. Our reader will surely know that the seal- 

 skins as worn by the seals and as offered for sale by the 

 furrier are very different-looking objects. Instead of the 

 sleak, glossy coats familiar to us, the sealskin when on its 

 own owner's back is a very unattractive thing, the fur not 

 being visible, but hidden away under a coat of stiff over- 

 hair, which is of a dark gray brown or grizzled colour. 

 Not only is this hair removed, but the whole fur is dyed. 



The seal life on the Pribylov group consists not only of 

 the fur seal (Callorliinus ursimts), but also of the sea lion 

 Eumetopias Stelleri, the hair seal (Phoca vitulina). and 

 the walrus (Odobccnus ohesus). Of these it is only the 

 first that is of any commercial value ; but in this work we 

 have some very interesting sketches of the life and 

 manners of the others, and some very characteristic 

 portraits. As our space will not allow us to refer in detail 

 to these, we may here mention the fine figure of an old 

 male walrus, being a life study, forming Plate 21, and the 

 figures of the sea lions on Plate 16. The life studies of 

 the common hair seal on Plate 4 are also very excellent : 

 this animal, so common in the Atlantic, would appear to 

 be rare in the North Pacific. Although the skin of the 

 sea-lion has little or no commercial value, yet to the 

 natives it is most valuable ; it supplies them not only 

 with its hide and flesh, but they also utilise its fat, sinews, 

 and intestines ; its very lip bristles are in great demand 

 in China for pickers to the opium pipes, and for several 

 ceremonies peculiar to the joss houses. The walruses 

 are of little value unless for their hides ; these are used 

 for covering the frames of boats, and when the latter are 

 thoroughly and constandy attended to they form the best 

 species of lighter that can be used on the islands, standing 

 more thumping and pounding than any sort of a wooden 

 boat or even than a corrugated iron lighter. 



It is, however, the history of the fur seal that will 

 chiefly interest the readers of this volume. It repairs to 

 these islands to breed and to shed its hair and fur, in 

 numbers that seem almost fabulous. It seems to be an 

 animal of wonderful instinct ; indeed, our author thinks 

 that few, if any, creatures in the animal kingdom exhibit 

 a higher order of instinct. A male, when in his prime, 

 about 6 or 7 years of age, will measure 6i to 7^ feet in 

 length from the tip of his nose to the end of his little tail, 

 and will weigh from 400 to 600 pounds. Its muzzle and 

 jaws are about the same size and form as those of a full 

 blooded Newfoundland dog, only the lips are pressed 

 against one another as in man ; on either side of the 

 muzzle are an expressive pair of large bluish hazel eyes. 

 In one of the plates there is a very excellent portrait by the 

 author, of an old male. When the fur seal moves on land, 

 it may be almost said to step with its fore feet, but it brings 

 up the rear of its body in a quite different style, for after 



every second step ahead with the anterior limbs, it will 

 arch its spine, and in arching it drags and lifts up and 

 brings forward the hind feet to a fit position under its 

 body, giving it, in this manner, fresh leverage for another 

 movement forward by the fore feet, in which movement 

 the spine is again straightened out. If it be frightened, 

 its abandons this method. " It launches into a lope, and 

 actually gallops so fast, that the best powers of a man in 

 running are taxed to head it." This rapid progress it 

 can only keep up for some thirty or forty yards at most, 

 then it sinks to the earth, gasping and breathless. The 

 adult males are always the first to arrive on the seal- 

 ground, which has been deserted by all of them since the 

 close of the preceding year. These arrivals begin about 

 May 1. Not the oldest, but the most ambitious, land 

 first. Up to June 1 more seals arrive, but about this 

 period the seal weather begins — foggy and moist ; and as 

 the gray banks roll up and shroud the islands, the bull 

 seals swarm out of the depths by thousands, and take 

 up advantageous positions. The labour of locating and 

 maintaining a position on the rookery is a terribly serious 

 business for the late-coming males, as it is throughout all 

 the time to those males that occupy the water-line of the 

 breeding-grounds. A constantly sustained fight between 

 the new comers and the occupants goei on morning, 

 noon, and night without cessation, frequently resulting in 

 death to one, and even to both the combatants. This 

 fighting is done with the mouth. The sharp, canine 

 teeth, tear out great masses of the skin and blubber. 

 One old veteran, specially watched, took up his position 

 on the water-line early in May. He had to fight from 

 forty to fifty desperate battles ; and when the fighting 

 seaso n was over he was there, covered with scars, and 

 frightfully gashed, raw, festering, and bloody, with one 

 eye gouged out, but lording it still bravely over his harem 

 of some fifteen or twenty females. These seals are 

 profound sleepers, so much so that one, cautiously keeping 

 to the leew : ard, and stepping softly, would find it easy to 

 approach near enough to pull the whiskers of any old 

 male ; but on the first touch the trifler must be prepared 

 to jump back with electrical celerity, if he has any regard 

 for the sharp teeth and tremendous shaking which would 

 await him. On young seals the trick may be played with 

 impunity, but to the great terror and confusion of the 

 little sleepers. While the females and young have but 

 one note, a hollow prolonged bla-a-ting call, addressed to 

 their young : the bulls have the power of uttering four 

 distinct calls or notes. They seem to suffer misery from 

 a comparatively low degree of heat. From the time of 

 the males landing, until the close of the season — about 

 three months — they never leave the stations they have 

 secured for a single moment, and of necessity they 

 abstain during all this time from food of any kind, or 

 water. It is no wonder, therefore, that after such a 

 fast they return to the sea mere bony shadows of what 

 they were. 



About the middle of June the females arrive, and, bad 

 as the fighting among the males has been up to this to 

 secure good stations on the land, it is now ever so much 

 worse for the possession of the cows. These latter aie 

 much smaller and more lithesome than the males, seldom 

 over 4 to 4^ feet in length. Their heads and eyes are 

 exceedingly beautiful ; their expression is gentle, in- 

 telligent, and attractive. The females land on the 

 ;< rookeries" for the purpose of gestation, and the 

 young are born very soon after the arrival of the 

 females. The females are received by the males on 

 the water-line stations with attention ; they are alter- 

 nately coaxed and asked up on the rocks, as far as 

 these beach-masters can do so, by chuckling, whist- 

 ling and roaring, and once up they are immediately 

 under the most jealous supervision ; but owing to the 

 covetous and ambitious nature of the bulls which occupy 

 those stations to the rear of the water-line ones and some 



