FOREST AND STREAM. 
Photo by C. P. Ambler. 
DICK AND CHARLEY WASHAKIE. 
Woman wearingr elk teeth dress. 
The Harriman Alaska Expedition. 
VIII. — Some Life on Sea and Shore* 
At the Glacier's Ftont. 
Where the glacier enters the sea, grinding over the 
rocks, carrying down gravel, silt and the finely pulver- 
ized glacial mud; where the ice. is continually falling from 
its front in great masses, and the water is literally ice 
cold; where the front, too, is constantly receding, moving 
further and further up the channel, and the place of the 
ice is taken by the salt water, the freshly exposed shore 
is lifeless." Yet after a time this lifeless shore becomes 
the home of various sorts of marine life. The glacier re- 
cedes, the warmer waters of the inlet come and go with 
the tide, the sun warms the earth, so long ice covered. 
Each time the waters advance with the flowing tide life 
or its germ is brought to the barren shore, and some of it 
remains there. Of this the first is plant life, for plants go 
ahead. The biologists, who studied the life of the shores 
of the inlets, found seaweed close to the foot of the gla- 
cier — that is to say, not more than half a mile below it. 
A little further down, perhaps three-qtiarters of a mile 
from the ice front, a few very young and small barnacles 
were found clinging to the stones of the beach. Next 
below these were found small mussels, and still further 
away, perhaps a mile and a half below the ice, life is as 
abundant as four or five miles further down the inlet. 
The largest creatures found in the mud and sand were 
the sea sausages; they are the pioneers, making channels 
through the mud, and in their wake follow two sorts of 
marine worms, a crab and a clam, which inhabit the bur- 
rows which they make. Primarily, seaweed is the food 
of all this life, but it is not the direct food of all, for 
many of the small animals feed on their neighbors. 
la the Inlets. 
Further down the inlet, and in those where no glaciers 
come down to the sea, the life of the waters is marvel- 
ously abundant. 
On the rocks along the inlets, when the tide is low, ap- 
pears, always near high water mark, a band of gray 
barnacles; below that another band, shining black, of 
mussels, clinging closely to the rocks, and beneath these 
is the brown or green seaweed. All this usuallj^ lies in 
the shadow of the great evergreens which overhang the 
water, and is rarely touched by the sun. 
Traveling with the restless tide backward and forward 
through the inlets are long stems of the giant kelp torn 
from their beds by the storm or by the passage of some 
large vessel. Smallest at the bottom where its slender 
rootlets grasp the rock, or even some little pebble in the 
mud, the stem of the kelp tapers very gradually perhaps 
for 50 or 60 feet until the surface of the water is almost 
reached, when it suddenly grows thicker, at last ex- 
panding into a globular head, from which the long wide 
leaves grow to wave unceasingly in the tide-swept chan- 
nels. The slender stems which grow far beneath the sur- 
face of the water were the fishing lines of the primitive 
Indians, and are still used by them. They are so strong 
and tough as to be almost beyond the power of man to 
break, and when wet are readily knotted together, and it 
is with these that the Cape Flattery Indians still catch 
200-pound halibut. 
In the waters of the inlet are floating many things 
strange to the eye. Curious jelly fish which may be seen, 
yet hardly felt, which have form but apparently no sub- 
stance. Some of these are brilliant in color; others are 
without color, save for certain white lines that surround 
their circular bodies or sometimes appear to divide them 
into sections. , 
At one point far from the ice, and where the water pre- 
sumably was fairly warm, one of the party spent an hour 
or two with his nose very close to' the surface of the 
water, as he watched the occupations of the different 
marine animals that live close to the shore. Here there 
were many little crabs, the largest about the size of a 
silver half-dollar, which clambered about over the rocks 
like so many goats and fed upon the seaweed. They 
walked slowly about, plucking the food with their curi- 
ously enlarged white claws, using the right and left alter- 
nately, so that while one held the food against the mouth 
the other was gathering a fresh supply. The crabs seemed 
wholly intent on what they were doing and paid little 
attention to anything except the business of feeding. The 
largest were deep purple in color, while the smaller ones 
seemed always dull grayish green, which was precisely 
the color of the rocks on which they fed. They seemed to 
get along very comfortably together, but occasionally if 
a small crab approached too near a large one the latter 
motion, which ceased only when they had grasped sorais 
morsel of food which was fioatihg by. When this hap- 
pened the arms were quickly drawn into the cell, the 
valves closed, and the animal for a time remained 
quiescent. 
In many places there were seen sea urchins, or, as they, 
are sometimes called, sea eggs, and star fish, which 
moved very slowly over the bottom. The sea urchins, 
which are- of many sorts, are coshered with long spines, 
and by means of a continuous motion of these spines 
have the power of making journeys of considerable length. 
They are eaten by the crows and ravens, which find them 
uncovered at low water, and carrying them up into the 
trees reach the soft body by breaking away the shell. 
Such broken shells are often found on the beach, and 
sometimes far back in the forest. 
The star fish are extremely numerous and of many 
sorts, sizes and colors. They travel about in part by 
using the slender suckers with which their arms are pro- 
vided and in part by hooking their arms about the angles 
of the rock and thus pulling themselves forward for short 
distances. 
Sijafowl. 
Steaming along among the narrow passages in the 
quiet inlets, the ship constantly disturbed the water birds 
that h^d their home there. There were gulls of many 
sorts floating lightly on the water or circling about and 
following tlte ship; ducks, loons or grebes, which flew as 
the ship approached, or dived to come up close under the 
shore, or even behind the vessel; flocks of crows feeding 
along the wash of the .shore, and with them hoarse-voiced 
ravens, which were less shy than the- crows and flew 
up into the trees to wait until the steamer had passed. 
Sometimes from behind an island or from some little bay 
a flock of a dozen western Canada geese would rise on 
the wing and swing about near the vessel, uttering mel- 
low honkings, which often called out two or three men 
with their rifles. 
When the open sea was reached, cormorants, murres 
and puffins were seen, and sometimes flocks of old 
squaws, and, as we proceeded further north, of harlequin 
ducks. 
On the Muir Inlet, 600 feet above tide water, one of 
the party fotind a nest of white-tailed ptarmigan with 
six eggs, and secured these and the mother bird. At the 
sea level the willow ptarmigan was abundant. The birds 
of the land were not numerous, by comparison with those 
of the sea. There were ptarmigan of two sorts, the dusky 
grouse, the Canada grouse or spruce partridge, two or 
three sorts of thrush, two or three of wiarblers, a song 
sparrow, Steller's jay and a few others. 
It was in the Muir Inlet that the first jaeger was seen. 
Later, at Kadiak Island and in Yakutat Bay, and again 
in Port Clarence, they were quite common. 
In Yakutat Bay, flying over the waters, or resting in 
great numbers on the icebergs, were many gulls, chiefly 
kittiwakes. They were breeding on the north side of the 
bay, both along shore and on sloughs back among the tim- 
ber, and they were often seen roosting on the dark fir 
trees. On the north side of the bay, also, were seen loons, 
probably black-throated divers, whose call was almost like 
the rich profusion of flowers. 
Photo by E. S. Curtis. Copyright, 1899, by E, H. Harriman. 
would make a threatening dash at the little fellow, which 
would at once retreat with many defensive demonstra- 
tions of its claws. 
Fixed to the sides of many of the stones were long 
curved white tubes. Some of these were empty and de- 
serted, while from others protruded a cluster of crimson 
tentacles, the whole looking like some beautiful red flower 
supported on a white stem. If a finger or a stick was cau- 
tiously thrust toward the flower, and it was touched, it at 
once disappeared into the tube, which seemed empty. A 
little later a small dot of red would make its appearance 
far down in the tttbe, would gradually grow larger, and 
slowly the arms would appear and resume their flower- 
like appearance. 
The barnacles which covered the rocks above a certain 
line were not the least interesting of the living creatures 
to be seen along the shore. When left bare by the tide 
they showed no signs of life; but as soon as fairly covered 
each little pair of valves opened and the tiny arms were 
extended and swept through th« water with a rcguiar 
the quack of a duck, but with a little grate in the note. 
Short-eared owls were seen here, breeding. 
Qiff Dw-ellers. 
Five or six miles below the front of the Muir Glacier 
is a little bay near which are two or three islands on 
whose lofty vertical cliffs many sea birds were breeding, 
chiefly cormorants and puffins, with not a few great 
white-winged gulls. Often the gulls could be seen in 
pairs, the female sitting on her nest and her mate standing 
by her. The shags were clustered on the ledges, their 
long snaky necks outstretched as they watched us. Many 
were seen swimming in the water or sitting in rows like 
soldiers on the floating icebergs. Usually the puffins 
could not be seen on the cliffs, for their nests were for the 
most part holes in the rock, but they were constantly seen 
flying to the cliffs, and again away from them, or their 
light-colored heads could be seen at the mouths of their 
holes. Some specimens of these birds were needed, and 
ont of the party landed at the foot of the cliff, and sta:^'* 
