128 ALASKA. 



with nearly as many different seals, who coveted his position, 

 and when the fighting-season was over, (after the cows have 

 mostly all hauled up,) I saw him, covered with scars and gashes 

 raw and bloody, an eye gouged out, but lording it bravely over 

 his harem of fifteen or twenty cows, all huddled together on 

 the same spot he had first chosen. 



The fighting is mostly or entirely done with the mouth, the 

 opponents seizing each other with the teeth and clenching 

 the jaws; nothing but sheer strength can shake them loose, 

 and that efibrt almost always leaves an ugly wound, the sharp 

 canines tearing out deep gutters in the skin and blubber or 

 shredding the flippers into ribbon-strips. 



They usually approach each other with averted heads and a 

 great many false passes before either one or the other takes the 

 initiative by griping; the heads are darted out and back as quick 

 as flash, their hoarse roaring and shrill, piping whistle never 

 ceases, while their fat bodies writhe and swell with exertion and 

 rage, fur flying in air and blood streaming down — all combined 

 make a picture fierce and savage enough, and, from its great 

 novelty, exceedingly strange at first sight. 



In these battles the parties are always distinct, the offensive 

 and the defensive ; if the latter proves the weaker he with- 

 draws from the position occupied, and is never followed by his 

 conqueror, who complacently throws up oneof his hind flippers, 

 fans himself as it were, to , cool himself from the heat of the 

 conflict, utters a peculiar chuckle of satisfaction or contempt, 

 with a sharp eye open for the next covetous bull or " see- 

 catch."* 



The period occupied by the males in taking and holding their 

 positions on the rookery offers a favorable opportunity in 

 which to study them in the thousand and one different attitudes 

 and postures assumed between the two extremes of desperate 

 conflict and deep sleep — sleep so sound that one can, by keep- 

 ing to the leeward, approach close enough, stepping softly, to 

 pull the whiskers of any one taking a nap on a clear place ; but 

 after the first touch to these whiskers the trifler must jump 

 back with great celerity, if he his any regard for the sharp 

 .teeth and tremendous shaking which will surely overtake him 

 if he does not. 



The neck, chest, and shoulders of a fur-seal bull comprise 



* " See-eatch,'-' native uamo for the bulls on the rookeries, especially those 

 ■which are able to maiutaiu their position. 



