soenepah fe Wal eat gs boert ob rti yy brat? Apes iat eh enaet hk asi ate ; : pn Mea nnaebielt ei ‘Peer ae Hag este ea te f : paca na irtrte tw is ity If ty the a i 9 bed pate edie el Sy Eian eset bey Bite ty Mth te i 3 . A ey frais " aia stele My ote Bee hegre malay te evn ae ‘ ‘ brat eae a bn MUMS iat 4 ae pate ade Repro In vtet) + wt bl oe att ei dge att se i i rast ‘ tly © S Mp ees oe G > oy. ye haat oe Ss ee Ma a 18 Rg > See 4 WZ Sheet bee Sp. \a oN Py es & i ~ e we e oo p = ‘ = ey 2 . > 3 S : R : Erte at! By ees ae errs rot, Se 5 lege ea 3 fr Sees ial On eset ASS / ‘en of SA f ‘14 DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, pss —~ a CHhNS US OF PITCH. afar) / FRANCIS A. WALKER, Superintendent, CHAS. W. SEATON, Superintendent, Appointed April 1, 1879; resigned November 3, 1881. = Appointed November 4, 1881, —_ : REPORT ON BY oe oO” Hem WW. BOT. oe y WASHINGTON: 3 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. : \ 1884. ; LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, March 31, 1880. Hon. FRANOIS A. WALKER, Superintendent Tenth Census. DEAR Sir: At the suggestion of Professor Baird and Mr. Goode, I have taken much pleasure in rewriting my field-notes made upon the Seal Islands of Alaska, which I herewith inclose for the use of the Census Office, now under your direction. I also embody those maps and drawings which I think necessary to give the reader a better idea of my understanding of the subject. Very respectfully, your friend and servant, HENRY W. ELLIOTT. 1 ANTAL Y Sis: A. INTRODUCTION. 1. History and objects of the memoir -..---..-....----..---------- o eeee cocee # cee nee cemwns eee cece anne cwccce cacens mane B. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 2. Geographical distribution of the fur-seal........-...- cevosse cotsce tsico ance saioouias Gent cee ne nus esha a nec sl dece keds cewane soem 2 21. Epitome of special reports upon the seal-islands in the archives of the Treasury Department --...-..--------.------- J. ILLUSTRATIVE AND SUPPLEMENTAL NOTEs. 22. The Rassian seal-islands, Bering and Copper, or the Commander group...-.---..-.--. ------- ------ eee ee ee eee eee eee 23. St. Matthew island and its relation to St. Paul .......--.--.--- SAS Bee: © So EAE nr Sern es ae Sears) ee 24. Digest of the data in regard to the fur-seal rookeries of the South Atlantic and Pacific, and number of skins taken therefrom << setse =~ asain ene = B5 oc ache Sane enis eos eS SAE ESO ee SoS RECA ESC Ee eae eee ees ee brs 5-555 25. Catalogue/of themammals of the Pribylov group. << ...52 == s:-<222 1-22 oe cc secs cane costes seccce secs access easdee seeens 26, Catalopne ofitiemiros Gino bit DV lOV PLOUD- 2252-2 cote seinae =U score sence esas eons, tone ssaccesceact aos ase ec Sa5e eae Oatslopue or themisheson the PrN ylOM PTOUP). ose ss eeme ne cc aer wenn e Swen en sesenncenscle cote Sdutiaeeecsescsesleseone Ss NOLEATONGUHON Thy GRECRUS VOR oo ele ot nee et ere ered eee oe nial Bisa sie a ce reie an vane pice cwcctedoes sige ceeeceuene NOLES TON bIGs) LAPIN Beets onc 0. en ee te Cate ieee oe eee no soma b sce oaaLeese sas dataees paceeacansieceees 30. Veniaminoy on the Russian seal-industry at the Pribyloy islands-.........---.-------- 2-22-22 eee eee eee eee eee eee 31. Veniaminov’s account of the discovery of the Pribylov islands. .---.. ..---. .----- --20 --- 202 een ee enn eee eel eee wees 32. History of the organization of the Russian-American Fur Company ..--..---------- ---- ------ -2- een nee eee een eee 33. Meteorological abstract for the months, from September, 1872, to April, 1873, inclusive .-......---.---..----.---.---- 34. The method of dressing the fur-seal skin .-.-...--------- a re a a DoE GUIS win SONU. ar Serene ose Ae. EE Saitama San ole eeel nls Sen qe acne caee eee eee atceee Bombe: awn rOLechin ps the) seal-1s ands) «~seeeneme ee eso. Hla Se) lal il. ecdiee o-o2 ben woce 37. The organization and regulations of the Alaska Commercial Company .... ..-..------------------------------- Some onmentsimponyine legislation) of (COupTesa tse m re ae sem van coca ee sok Salta ow eo eielk eed oe ee Sees eon eeie 39. Paragraphs of reference relative to subjects discussed in the preceding memoir, and referred to as “Note 39”........- 40. Final notes and tables relative to the value, protection, and growth of the fur-seal; and the revenue derived from that IMG UBIN WO OMENS ENO VIOW IS|BUOS)2cecn: Heat EME et> Ss Seeelan es onde ooced\ock Heel eae eae ee Sad cba Ges’ sene GLossaRy. = 41. Definition of technical terms and Russian nomenclature, used by the author in the preceding monograph 42. Weights, measures, and values 175 ILLUSTRATIONS. Page. PLATE I.—Profiles of the east coast of St. Paul --.-- ..---- --- 2 -- nn e enn enna e eens coe ee cnc n en cee wes secees enewes wane anon 19 II.—Meat frames, lighter, hut.......------ ---- ---------+ +227 cree: BEES enon GH 00 GLDE RoOEOCe DOES SOO Ocn cascecesoacacs0 21 I1l.—Typical dress of the native .. .... .--------- --- 22+ cee ee rene tere cree cern ee cerns cee tnee rene sneer ns cone n nnn ne 23 IV.—The hair-seal, Phoca vitulina ...--.----------- ee eee cece ne cone cece ence ee conn ee tween canna cone ence cece ence 23 V.— The countenaneelol i Callorhinus..o.2-< s22.-os-=0 .soceelooaeeniesseGone ce sane e er aeres eae rennnns -mnd ane eee 29 VI.—The fur-seal—a general group...--. -.---- ---- ---+ ---= -2 2 nee teen eens cnn cere cen nee cnn sees cere cee nce ne 32 VII.—The natives selecting a drive..... .----- ------ ---- ---- -- 20 eee eee teens ene Aemenine cata ceengotodesdcreseo cadens 45 VIII.—Sundry sketches from the author’s portfolio -...----.----.------------ SEE are aa CCH Bou e aaa too sonny Seas cent ee 47 1X.—The north shore of St. Paul island. .... ---- .----- + -- +--+ eee ens een ee eee enn eee ene ee nee ee nnn seen crete nn- 57 X.—The north rookery, etc., St. George island .----. ------ ---- -- +--+ 2-22 --=- 222 o 2 enn nee errs tenes een nn rt ennn ee 61 XI.—Pelagic attitudes of the fur-seal -......- .----- ------ -- 22-22 = ene ene eee cee cn renee tence see ere setts cane 65 XII.—‘‘ Holluschickie” sporting around the baidar -..:..---- .---..- ----0+ +--+ ¢-2 200 ene penne seen tere rte rees eee 67 XIII.—Natives driving the ‘‘ Holluschickie” ---..----. -------- -----+ ---= eee ene ene een re eee nn enn ren res tern 71 XIV.—The killing gang.--..----.----.----- wo cae ow cldsedee gee eee s Heeeicas a sie Ces = lnmaisee pela fmieial mmm atein nai iain minolta 73 XV.—Kenching seal-skins.-.. ---..------ ------ --- 022 -22 = eens ene e ne wane ne eee nee cence sens sone cme nne se tere cass tant 77 XVI.—The sea-lion, Humetopias Stelleri..... .-.--- -----+ --- 2-2-0 e ce nnn e en nee ener cern vee eens teeters eens res tacos: 85 XVII.—The black sea-lion, Zalophus Gillespit ...--. -.---------+ ---- -- 22-2 == 2222 <2 o ne ee nn nnn rn nner rrr 87 XVIII.—Springing the alarm ...---.----- .----+ ---+ s222 eee nee cee cerns penne rr rne were teense sore en ses cass senna 89 XIX.—The sea-lion corral or pen ...- --2.------ ---= -- 2 = - 2 ee nnn enn = ne wenn nen enn enn nnn nnn ser rma men nnn 91 XX.—Spearing the surround; driving, and shooting old males.......-..---------- ---2-22-2+ -27 2222 re nore soreness 93 XXI.—The walrus of Bering sea --.-.----------- ------ een ne ene een nn en wee eee ee PD Ree See aes BRS Ones LASS SSS 95 XXII.—Plunging the harpoon. ..-- .--------- +--+ ---+ --- 222 222 coe wee seen rere nen enn nes cons seen see nes cere saee Oy XXIII.—The walrus “coup” -------- 2-2 penne een cee nee cane cee cee ene cen cee cerns enn s seen serene sec eee naan nner 99 XXIV.—The Eskimo double purchase ; 101 XXV.—Walrus islet .... ..---. --- 22 end ene cone cence ne nnn ene n ee nee ween meee wee tns veenae ehocoopsesco gee ese 103 XXVI.—The Landseer and Edward figures of the fur-seal : 109 XXVII.—Sea-bird egging over cliffs of St. George...--. ------ ---- 222 eee nae enone eens enn nnn nen ene nnn encore sass 125 XXVIII.—Sea-bird egging at Walrus island ........---.------ -----= --20 --0- won one oon tenn nen rennin rec ere caren sane 127 XXIX.—The Fulmar’s niche ......---- .---- + eens nnn ee nn ee en eee rn nnn tee tenn nas cena n wenn rece r nee ee 135 Mar or St. PAUL. , 176 MaAPlorm Sr GEORGE \Ssacwipin ay Cae ann Siaeeloct clr, See kc hy Rn ar SRT ERE SR SEO 5 Se 4 THE SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. A. INTRODUCTION. 1. HISTORY AND OBJECTS OF THE MEMOIR. THE WRITER’S OPPORTUNITIES FOR OBSERVATION.—During the progress of the heated controversies that took place pending the negotiation which ended in the acquisition of Alaska by our government, frequent references were made to the fur-seal. Strange to say, this animal was so vaguely known at that time, even to scientific men, that it » was almost without representation in any of the best zodlogical collections of the world: even the Smithsonian Institution did not possess a perfect skin and skeleton. The writer, then as now, an associate and collaborator of this establishment, had his curiosity very much excited by those stories, and in March, 1872, he was, by the joint action of Professor Baird and the Secretary of the Treasury, enabled to visit the Pribylov islands for the purpose of studying the life and habits of these animals. The fact is, that the acquisition of those pelagic peltries had engaged thousands of men, and that millions of dollars have beenemployed in capturing, dressing, and selling fur-seal skins during the hundred years just passed by; yet, from the time of Steller, away back as far as 1751, up to the beginning of the last decade, the scientific world actually knew nothing definite in regard to the life-history of this valuable animal. The truth connected with the life of the fur-seal, as it herds in countless myriads on the Pribylov islands of Alaska, is far stranger than fiction. Perhaps the existing ignorance has been caused by confounding the hair-seal, Phoca vitulina, and its kind, with the creature now under discussion. Two animals more dissimilar in their individuality and method of living can, however, hardly be imagined, although they belong to the same group, and live apparently upon the same food. The notes, surveys, and hypotheses herewith presented are founded upon the writer’s personal observations in the seal-rookeries of St. Paul and St. George, during the seasons of 1872 to 1874, inclusive, supplemented by his confirmatory inspection made in 1876. They were obtained through long days and nights of consecutive observation, from the beginning to the close of each seal-season, and cover, by actual surveys, the entire ground occupied by these animals. They have slumbered in the author’s portfolio until the present moment, simply for the reason that he desired, before making a final presentation of the history of these islands and the life thereon, to visit the Russian seal-islands, the “Commanders”, viz, Bering and Copper islands, which lie to the westward, 700 miles from our own, and are within the pale of the ezar’s dominion. PREVIOUS OBSERVATIONS OF STELLER AND OTHERS.—In treating this subject the writer has trusted to nothing save what he himself has seen; for, until these life-studies were made by him, no succinct and consecutive history of the lives and movements of these animals had been published by any man. Fanciful yarns, woven by the ingenuity of whaling captains, in which the truth was easily blended with that which was not true, and short paragraphs penned hastily by naturalists of more or less repute, formed the knowledge that we had. Best of all was the old diary of Steller, who, while suffering bodily tortures, the legacy of gangrene and scurvy, when wrecked with Vitus Bering on the Commander islands, showed the nerve, the interest, and the energy of a true naturalist. He daily crept, with aching bones and watery eyes, over the bowlders and mossy flats of Bering island, to catch glimpses of those strange animals which abode there then as they abide to-day. Considering the physical difficulties that environed Steller, the notes made by him on the sea-bears of the North Pacific are remarkably good; but, as I have said, they fail so far from giving a fair and adequate idea of what these immense herds are and do, as to be absolutely valueless for the present hour. Shortly after Steller’s time, great activity sprang up in the South Atlantic and Pacific over the capture and sale of fur-seal skins taken in those localities. It is extraordinary, that though whole fleets of American, English, French, Dutch, and Portuguese vessels engaged, during a period of protracted enterprise, of over eighty years in length, in the business of repairing to the numerous rookeries of the Antarctic, returning 5 6 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. annually, laden with enormous cargoes of fur-seal skins; yet, as above mentioned, hardly a definite line of record has been mae in regard to the whole transaction, involving, as it did, so much labor and so much eapital. FORMER PUBLICATIONS OF THE WRITER.—A brief digest of the writer’s notes, relating principally to the business on the islands, was prepared and given to the Treasury Department in 1873~74. This was printed by the Secretary, and has been the text of guidance, as to observation, employed by the agents of the government ever since. The maps and sketch-maps are herewith accordingly given to the public for the first time; the author, feuwing that private and personal affairs, which now confine him, may possibly never permit bis going over to the , Asiatic rookeries, thinks it perhaps better that what he now knows definitely in regard to the matter should be published without longer delay. It was with peculiar pleasure that the writer undertook, at the suggestion of Professor Baird, who is the honored and beloved secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, the task of examining into and reporting upon this subject; and it is also gratifying to add, that the statements of fact and the hypotheses evolved therefrom by him in 1874, have, up to the present time, been verified by the inflexible sequence of events on the ground itself. The concurrent testimony of the numerous agents of the Treasury Department and the government generally, who have trodden in his footsteps, amply testifies to their stability. (See uote, 39, A.) B. GHOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 2, GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE FUR-SEAL. PECULIARITIES OF DISTRIBUTION.—Onr first thought in studying the distribution of the fur-seals throughout the high seas of the earth, is one of wonder. While they are so widely spread over the Antarctic regions, yet, as we pass the equator going north, we find in the Atlantic above the tropics nothing that resembles them. Their range in the North Pacific is virtually confined to four islands in Bering sea, namely, St. Paul and St. George of the tiny Pribylov group, and Bering and Copper of the Commander islands, large in area, but relatively scant in seal-life. ; The remarkable discrepancy which we have alluded to may be better understood when we consider that these animals require certain conditions of landing and breeding ground and climate, all combined, for their perfect lite and reproduction. In the North Atlantic no suitable territory for their reception exists, or ever did exist; and really nothing in the North Pacific beyond what we have designated in Bering sea will answer the requirements of the fur-seal. When we look over the Antarctic waters, we are surprised at what might have been done, and should have been done. in those southern oceans. There we find hundreds of miles of the finest seal-breeding grounds on the western coast of Patagonia, the beautiful reaches of the Falkland islands, the great extent of Desolation island,' together with the whole host of smaller islets, where these animals abounded in almost countless numbers when first discovered, and should abound to-day—umillions upon millions—but which have been, through nearly a century the victims of indiscriminate slaughter. directed by most unscrupulous and most energetic men. It seems well-nigh incredible, but it is true, nevertheless, that for more than fifty years a Jarge fleet, numbering more than sixty suil, and carrying thousands of active men, traversed this coast and cireumnavigated every island and islet, annually slaughtering right ind left wherever the seal-life was found. Ships were laden to the water’s edge with the fresh, air-dried, and salted skins, and they were swallowed up in the marts of the world, bringing mere nominal prices— the markets glutted, but the butchery never stopping. THE SHAL GROUNDS IN 1HE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.—I will pass in brief review the seal-grounds of the southern hemisphere. The Galapagos islands come first in our purview; this scattered group of small rocks — and islets, uninhabited and entirely arid, was, fifty years ago, resorted to by a very considerable number of these animals, Arctocephalus australis, together with many sea-lions, Otaria Hookeri; great numbers were then captured by fur-sealers, who found to their sorrow, when the skins were inspected, that pelage was poor and worthless. A few survivors, however, remain to this day. Along and off the coast of Chili and Bolivia are the St. Felix and Juan Fernandez islands, the latter place being one of the most celebrated rookeries known to Antarctic sealers. The west coast of Patagonia and a portion of that of Terra del Fuego was, in those early days of seal-hunting, and is to-day, the finest connected range of seal-rookery ground in the south. Here was annually made the concentrated attack of that sealing fleet referred _ to; and one can readily understand how thorough must have been the labor, as he studies the great extent and deep indentation of this coast, its thousand and one islands and islets, and when he sees to-day that there is scarcely a rookery of fur-seals known to exist there. The Falkland islands, just abreast of the straits of Magellan, were also celebrated, and a favorite resort, not only of the sealers; but of the whale-fleets of the world. They are recorded, in the brief mention made by the best authority, as fairly swarming with fur-seals when they were opened up by Captain Cook. There is to-day, in the place of the millions that once existed, an insignificant number, taken notice of only now and then. 4 ‘ THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 7 The Georgia islands and the Sandwich group, all a succession of rocky islands and reefs awash—the South Orkneys, the Shetlands, the Auckland group, Campbell’s island, Emerald island, and a few islets lying just to the southward of New Zealand—have all been places of lively and continued butchery; the fur-seals ranging in desperation from one of those places to the other as the seasons progressed, and the merciless search and slaughter continued. These pinnipeds, however, never went to the southward of 62° south latitude. In considering the western Antarctic hemisphere, I must not forget also to mention, that the fur-seal was in early times found up the east coast of South America, here and there in little rookeries, as far north as cape St. Roque; but the number was unimportant, when brought into contrast with that belonging to those localities which I have designated. A small cliff-bound rookery to-day exists at cape Corientes. This is owned and farmed out by the Argentine republic, and we are informed that in spite of all their care and attention they have neither increased nor have they diminished from their original insignificance; from this rookery only three to five thousand were and are annually taken. It appears as if the fur-seals had originally passed to Bering sea from the purent stock of the Patagonia region, up along the coast of South America, a few tarrying at the dry and heated Galapagos islands, the rest speeding on to the northward, disturbed by the clear skies and sandy beaches of the Mexican coast, on and up to the great fish-spawning shores of the Aleutian islands and Bering sea. There, on the Pribyloy group and the bluffy Commander islands, they found that union of cool water, well-adapted landing, and moist, foggy air which they had missed since they left the storm-beaten coasts far below. In the Antarctic waters of the eastern hemisphere seals were found at Tristan da Cunha, principally on Little Nightingale island, to the southward of it; on Gough’s island; on Bouvet’s island; Prince Edward and Marion islands; the Crozette group, all small rocks, as it were, over which violent storms fairly swept; then we observe the great rookeries of Kerguelen land, or Desolation island—where perhaps nine-tenths of all the oriental fur-seals congregated—thence over to a small and insignificant islet known as the Royal Company, south of Good Hope. This list includes all the known resting-places of the fur-seal in those waters. FORMER ABUNDANCE IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE: EXTENT OF EXTERMINATIONS.—In the light of the foregoing remarks, is it not natural, when we reflect upon the immense area and the exceedingly favored conditions of ground and climate frequented by the fur-seals of the Southern ocean, to say that their number must have been infinitely greater as they were first apprehended, surpassing all adequate description, when compared to those which we now regard as the marvel and wonder of the age—the breeding rookeries of the Pribylov group? It is a great pity that this work of extermination and senseless destruction should have progressed as it has to the very verge of total extinction, ere any one was qualified to take note of and record the wonderful lite thus eliminated. The Falkland islands and Kerguelen land, at least, might have been placed under the same restrictions and wholesome direction which the Russians established in the North seas, the benefits of which accrue to us to-day, and will forever, as matters are now conducted. Certainly it is surprising that the business thought, the hardheaded sense, of those early English navigators, should not have been equal to that of the Russian Promyshleniks, who were renowned as the most unscrupulous and the greediest of gain-getters. POSSIBILITIES FOR PROTECTION.—The Falkland islands offer natural conditions of protection by land far superior to those found on the Pribylov or Commander groups. They have beautiful harbors, and they lie in the track of commerce, advantages which are not shared by our islands; at Desolation island, perhaps, the difficulties are insuperable on account of the great extent of coast, which is practically inaccessible to men and nearly so to the seals; but the Falkland islands might have been farmed out by the British government at a trifling outlay and with exceeding good result; for, millions upon millions of the fur-seals could rest there to-day, as they did a hundred years ago, and be there to-morrow, as our seals do and are in Bering sea. But the work is done. There is nothing down there, now, valuable enough to rouse the interest of any government; still, a beginning might be made, which possibly forty or fifty years hence wonld rehabilitate the scourged and desolated breeding-grounds of the South seas. We are selfish people, however, and look only to the present, and it is, without question, more than likely that should any such proposition be brought before the British parliament it would be so ridiculed and exaggerated by demagogues and ignorant jesters as to cause its speedy suppression; hence, in our opinion, it is not at all likely that the English government, or any of the other governments controlling these many islands of the Southern ocean, which we have named, will ever take a single step in the right direction, as far as the encouragement of the fur-seal to live and prosper in those regions is concerned. When we look at our northern waters we speedily recognize the fact, that between North America and Europe, across the Atlantic and into the Arctic, there is not a single island or islet or stretch of coast that the fur-seal could successfully struggle for existence on. These facts will become entirely clear when the chapter on the habit of this animal is reached. ISOLATION OF THE NorTH PACHIC ROOKERIES.—In the North Pacific, in prehistoric times, a legend from Spanish authority states, that fur-seals were tolerably abundant on the Santa Barbara and Guadaloupe islands, off the coast of California, and the peninsula to the southward. A few were annually taken from these islands, up to 1835 and some were wont to sport on those celebrated rocks off the harbor of San Francisco, known as the Farralones ; ut no tradition locates a seal-rookery anywhere else on the northwest coast, or anywhere else in all Alaska and its islands, save the Pribylov group: while across and down the Asiatic coast, only the Commander islands and a little 8 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. € rock* in the Kurile chain have been and are resorted to by them. The crafty savages of that entire region, the hairy Ainos of Japan, and the Japanese themselves, have for a hundred years searched and searched in vain for such ground. COMMERCIAL IMPORTANCE OF THE ALASKA ROOKERIES.—To recapitulate, with the exception of these seal- islands of Bering sea, there are none elsewhere in the world of the slightest importance to-day; the vast breeding- grounds bordering on the Antarctic have been, by the united efforts of all nationalities—misguided, short-sighted, and greedy of gain—entirely depopulated ; only a few thousand unhappy stragglers are now to be seen throughout all that southern area, where millions once were found, and a small rookery protected and fostered by the government of a South American state, north and south of the mouth of the Rio de la Plata. When, therefore, we note the eagerness with which our civilization calls for sealskin fur, the fact that, in spite of fashion and its caprices, this fur is and always will be an article of intrinsic value and in demand, the thought at once occurs, that the government is exceedingly fortunate in having this great amphibious stock-yard far up and away in the quiet seclusion of Bering sea, from which it shall draw an everlasting revenue, and on which its wise regulations and its firm hand_can continue the seals forever. C. THE PRIBYLOV ISLANDS. 3. DISCOVERY OF THE PRIBYLOV ISLANDS. SEARCH OF RUSSIAN EXPLORERS FOR SEA-OTTERS AND SEALS.—AIl writers on the subject of Alaskan exploration and discovery, agree as to the cause of the discovery of the Pribylov islands in the last century. It was due to the feverish anxiety of a handful of Russian fur-gatherers, who desired to find new fields of gain when they had exhausted those last uncovered. Altasov, and his band of Russians, Tartars, and Kossacks, arrived at Kamtchatka, toward the close of the seveuteenth ceutury, and they first found of all men, the beautiful, costly, rare fur of the sea-otter. The animal bearing this pelage abounded then on that coast, but by the middle of the ei ehteenth century they and those who came after them had entirely extirpated it from that country. Then the survivors of Bering’s second voyage of observation, in 174142, and Tscherikov brought back an enormous number of skins from Bering island ; then Michael Novodiskov discovered Attoo, and the contiguous islands, in 1745; Paikov came after him and opened out the Fox islands, in the same chain, during 1759; then succeeded Stepan Glotov, of infamous memory, who determined Kakiak in 1763, and the peninsula of Alaska followed in order by Krenitsin, 1768. During these long years, from the discovery of Attoo until the last date mentioned above, a great many Russian associations fitted out at the mouth of the Amoor river, and the Okotsk sea, and prospected therefrom this whole Aleutian archipelago in search of the sea-otter. There were perhaps twenty-five or thirty different companies, with quite a fleet of small vessels, and so energetic and thorough were they in their search and capture of the sea-otter, that along by 1772 and 1774 the catch in this group had dwindled down from thousands and tens of thousands at first, to hundreds and tens of hundreds at last. As all men do when they find that that which they are engaged in is failing them, a change of search and inquiry was in order, and then the fur-seal, which had been noted but not valued much, every year as it went north in the spring through the passes and channels of the Aleutian chain, then going back south again in the fall, became the source of much speculation as to where it spent its time on land and how it bred. Nobody had ever heard of its stopping one solitary hour on a single rock or beach throughout all Alaska or the northwest coast. The natives, when questioned, expressed themselves as entirely ignorant, though they believed, as they believe in many things of which they have no knowledge, that these seals repaired to some unknown land in the north every summer and left every winter. They also reasoned then, that when they left the unknown land to the north in the fall, and went south into the North Pacific, they traveled to some other strange island or continent there, upon which in turn to spend the winter. Naturally the Russians preferred to look for the supposed winter resting-places of the fur-seal, and forthwith a hundred schooners and shallops sailed into storm and fog to the northward occasionally, but generally to the southward, in search of this rumored breeding-ground. Indeed, if the record can be credited, the whole bent of this Russian attention and search for the fur-seal islands was devoted to that region south of the Aleutian islands, between Japan and Oregon. PRIBYLOV’S DISCOVERY OF THE ISLANDS WHICH BEAR HIS NAME.—Hence ii was not until 1786, after more than eighteen years of unremitting search by hardy navigators, that the Pribylov islands were discovered. It seems that a rugged Muscovitie “stoorman”, or ship’s “mate”, Gehrman Pribylov by name, serving under the direction and in the pay of one of the many companies engaged in the fur-business at that time, was much moved and exercised in his mind by the revelations of an old Aleutian shaman at Oonalashka, who pretended to recite a legend of the natives, wherein he declared that certain islands in the Bering sea had long been known to Aleuts.t Pribylov commanded a small sloop, the “St. George”, which he employed for three successive years in constant, though fruitless, explorations to the northward of Oonalashka and Oonimak, ranging over the whole of * Robbins reef. + This legend is translated by the author, and published in the Appendix. 4 THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 9 Bering sea from the straits above. His ill-success does not now seem strange, when we understand the carrents, the « winds, and fogs of those waters. Why, only recently the writer himself has been on one of the best-manuned vessels that ever sailed from any port, provided with good charts and equipped with all the marine machinery known to navigation, and that vessel has hovered for nine successive days off the north point and around St. Paul island, sometimes almost on the reef, and never more than ten miles away, without actually knowing where the island was! So Pribyloy did well, considering, since at the beginning of the third summer’s tedious search, in June, 1786, his old sloop ran up against the walls of Tolstoi Mees, at St. George, and when, though the fog was so thick that he could see scarce the length of his vessel, his ears were regaled by the sweet music of seal-rookeries wafted out to him on the heavy air. He knew then that he had found the object of his search, and he at once took possession of the island in the Russian name and that of his craft. His secret could not long be kept. He had left some of his men behind him to hold the island, and when he returned to Oonalashka they were gone. And, when the next season had fairly opened, a dozen vessels were watching him and trimming in his wake. Of course they all found the island, and in that year, July, 1787, the sailors of Pribylov, on St. George, while climbing the blufis and straining their eyes for a relief-ship, descried the low coast and scattered cones of St. Paul, thirty-six miles to the northwest of them. When they landed at St. George, not a sign nor a vestige of human habitation was found thereon; but during the succeeding year, when they ‘crossed over to St. Paul, and took possession of it, in turn, they were surprised at finding on the south coast of that island, at a point now known as English bay, the remains of a recent fire. There were charred embers of driftwood, and places where grass had been scorched; there was a pipe, and a brass knife handle, which I regret to say have long passed beyond the cognizance of any ethnologist. This much appears in the Russian records. 4. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIBYLOV ISLANDS. The Pribylov islands lie in the heart of Bering sea, and are among the most insigniticant landmarks known in that ocean. They are situated 192 miles north of Oonalashka, 200 miles south of St. Matthews, and about the same distance westward of cape Newenham on the mainland. CLiIMATE.—The islands of St. George and St. Paul are from twenty-seven to thirty miles apart, St. George lying southeastward of St. Paul. They are far enough south to be beyond the reach of permanent ice-floes, upon which polar bears could have made their way to the islands, though a few of these animals were, doubtless, always present. They laid also distant enough from the inhabited Aleutian districts and the coast of the mainland to have remained unknown to savage men. Hence they afforded the fur-seal the happiest shelter and isolation, for their position seems to be such as to surround and envelop them with fog-banks that fairly shut out the sun nine days in every ten, during the summer and breeding-season. In this location, ocean-currents from the great Pacific, warmer than the normal temperature of that latitude, treading up from southward, ebb and flow around the islands as they pass, giving rise, during the summer and early autumn, to constant, dense, humid fog and drizzling mists, which hang in heavy banks over the islands and the sea-line, seldom dissolving away to indicate a pleasant day. By the middle or end of October, strong, cold winds, refrigerated on the Siberian steppes, sweep down across the islands, carrying off the moisture and clearing up the air. By the end of January, or early in February, they usually bring, by their steady pressure, from the north and northwest, great fields of broken ice, sludgy floes, with nothing in them approximating or approaching glacial ice. They are not very heavy or thick, but still as the wind blows they compactly cover the whole surface of the sea, completely shutting in the land, and for months at a time hushing the wonted roar of the surf. In the exceptioually cold seasons that succeed each other up there every four or five years, for periods of three and even four months— from December to May, and sometimes into June—the islands will be completely environed and ice-bound. On the other hand, in about the same rotation, occur the exceptionally mild winters. Not even the sight of an ice-tloe is recorded during the whole winter, and there is very little skating on the shallow lakes and lagoons peculiar to St. Paul and St George. This, however, is not often the case. The breaking-up of winter-weather and the precipitation of summer (for there is uo real spring or autumn in these latitudes), usually commences about the first week in April. The ice begins to leave or dissolve at that time, or a little later, so that by the 1st or 5th of May, the beaches and rocky sea-margin beneath the mural precipices are. generally clear and free from ice and snow, although the latter occasionally lies, until the end of July or the middle of August, in gullies and on leeward hill-slopes, where it has drifted during the winter. Fog, thick and heavy, rolls up from the sea, and closes over the land about the end of May; this, the habitual sign of summer, holds on steadily to the middle or end of October again. ‘ The periods of change in climate are exceedingly irregular during the autumn and spring, so-called, but in summer the cool, moist, shady, gray fog is constantly present. To this certainty of favored climate, coupled with - the perfect isolation and the exceeding fitness of the ground, is due without doubt, that preference manifested by the warm-blooded animals which come here every year, in thousands and hundreds of thousands, to breed, to the practical exclusion of all other ground. 10 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. A large amount of information in regard to the climate of these islands has been collected and recorded by the signal service, United States army, and similar observations are still continued by the agents of the Alaska Commercial Company. I simply remark here, that the winter which I passed upon St. Paul island (1872~73) was one of great severity, and, according to the natives, such as is very seldom experienced. Cold as it was, however, the lowest marking of the thermometer was only 12° Fahr. below zero, and that lasted but a few hours during a single day in February, while the mean of that month was 18° above. I found that March was the coldest month. Then the mean was 12° above, and I have since learned that March continues to be the meanest month of the year. ‘The lowest average of a usual winter ranges from 22° to 26° above zero; but these quiet figures are simply inadequate to impress the reader with the exceeding discomfort of the winter in that locality. It is the wind that tortures and cripples out-door exercise there, as it does on all the sea-coast and islands of Alaska. It is blowing, blowing, from every point of the compass at all times; it is an everlasting succession of furious gales, laden with snow and sleety spicule, whirling in great drifts to-day, while to-morrow the “boorga” will blow from a quarter directly opposite, and reverse its rift-building of the day preceding. Without being cold enough to suffer, one is literally confined and chained to his room from December until April by this zolian tension. Iremember very well that, during the winter of 1872-73, I was watching, with all the impatience which a man in full health and tired of confinement can possess, every opportunity to seize upon quiet intervals between the storms, in which I could make short trips along the tracks over which I was habituated to walk during the summer; yet, in all that hyemal season I got out but three times; and then only by the exertion of great physical energy. On a day in March, for example, the velocity of the cane at St. Paul, recorded by one of the signal service anemometers, was at the rate of 88 miles per hour, with as low a “guy enaanne as —4°! This particular wind-storm, with snow, blew at such a velocity for six dane) without an hour’s cessation, while the natives passed from house to house crawling on all-fours: no man could stand up against it, and no man wanted to. At amuch higher temperature—say at 15° or 16° above zero—with the wind blowing only 20 or 25 miles an hour, it is necessary, when journeying, to be most thoroughly wrapped up, to guard against freezing. As I have said, there are here virtually but two seasons—winter and summer. To the former belongs November and the following months up to the end of April, with a mean temperature of 20° to 28°; while the transition of summer is but a very slight elevation of that temperature, not more than 15° or 20°. Of the summer months, July, perhaps, is the warmest, with an average temperature between 46° and 50° in ordinary seasons. When the sun breaks out through the 98, and bathes the dripping, water-soaked hills and flats of the island in its hot flood of light, I have known the thermometer to rise to 60° and 64° in the shade, while the natives crawled out of the fervent and unwonted heat, anathematizing its brilliancy and potency. Sunshine does them no good; for, like the seals, they seem under its influence to swell up at the neck. A little of it suffices handsomely for both Aleuts and pinnipedia, to whom the ordinary atmosphere is much more agreeable. It is astonishing how rapidly snow melts here. This is due, probably, to the saline character of the air, for when the temperature is only a single degree above freezing, and after several successive days in April or May, at 34° and 36°, grass begins to grow, even if it be below melting drifts, and the frost has penetrated the ground many feet beneath. I have said that this humidity and fog, so strongly and peculiarly characteristic of the Pribylov group, was due to the warmer ocean-currents setting up from the coast of Japan, and trending to the Arctic through Bering’s Straits, and deflected to the southward into the North Pacific, laving, as it flows, the numerous passes and channels of the great Aleutian chain; but I do not think, nor do I wish to be understood as saying, that my observation in this respect warrants any conclusion as to so large a gulf-stream flowing to the north, such as mariners and hydrographers recognize upon the Atlantic coast. Ido not believe that there is anything of the kind equal to it in Bering sea. I think, however, that there is a steady set-up to northward from southward around the seal-islands, which is continued through Bering’s straits, and drifts steadily off up to the northeast, until it is lost beyond Point Barrow. That this pelagic circulation exists, is clearly proven by the logs of the whalers, who, from 1545 to 1856, literally filled the air over those waters with the smoke of their “ try-fires”, and plowed every square rod of that superficial marine area with their adventurous keels. While no two, perhaps, of those old whaling captains living to-day, will agree as to the exact course of tides,* for Alaskan tides do not seem to obey any law, they all affirm the existence of a steady current, passing up from the south to the northeast, through Bering’s straits. The flow is not rapid, and is doubtless checked at times, for short intervals, by other causes, which need not be discussed here. It is certain, however, that there is warm water enough, abnormal to the latitude, for the evolution of the characteristic fog-banks, which almost discomfited Pribylov, at the time of his discovery of the islands, nearly one hundred years ago, and which have remained ever since. Without this fog the fur-seal would never have rested there as he has done; but when he came on his voyage of discovery, ages ago, up from the rocky coasts of Patagonia, mayhap, had he not found this cool, moist temperature of St. Paul and St. George, he would have kept on, completed the circuit, and returned to those congenial antipodes of his birth. ~ The rise and fall of tide at the seal-islands I carefully watched one whole season at St. Paul. The irregularity, however, of ebb and flow, is the most prominent feature of the matter. The highest rise in the spring tides was a trifle over four feet, while that of the neap tides not much over two. Owing to the nature of the case, it is impossible to prepare a tidal calendar for Alaska, above the Aleutian islands, which will even faintly foreshadow a correct registration in advance. THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 11 CLoups.—Speaking of the stormy weather brings to my mind the beautiful, varied, and impressive nephelogical displey in the heavens overhead here during October and November. I may say, without exaggeration, that tne cloud effects which I have witnessed from the bluffs of this little island, in those seasons of the year, surpass anything that I had ever seen before. Perhaps the mighty masses of cumuli, deriving their origin from warm exhalations out of the sea, and swelled and whirled with such rapidity, in spite of their appearance of solidity, across the horizon, owe their striking brilliancy of color and prismatic tones to that low declination of the sun due to the latitude. Whatever the cause may be, and this is not the place to discuss it, certainly no other spot on earth can boast of a more striking and brilliant month display. In the season of 1865-66, when I was encamped on this same parallel of latitude in the mountains eastward of Sitka and the interior, I was particularly attracted by the exceeding brilliancy, persistency, and activity of the aurora; but here on St. Paul, though I eagerly looked for its dancing light, it seldom appeared; and when it did, it was a sad disappointment, the exhibition always being insignificant when compared in my mind with that flashing of my previous experience. A quaint old writer,* a hundred years ago, when describing Norway and its people, called attention to what he considered a very plausible theory as to the cause of the aurora; he cited an ancient sage, who believed that the change of the winds threw the saline particles of the sea high into the air, and then, by aerial friction, “fermentation” took place, and the light was evolved! [am sure that the saline particles of Bering sea were whirled into the air during the whole of that winter of my residence there, but no “fermentation” occurred, evidently, for rarely indeed did the aurora greet my eyes. In the summer season there is considerable lightning; you will see it streak its zigzag path mornings, evenings, and even noondays, but from the dark clouds and their swelling masses upon which it is portrayed no sound returns; a fulgur brutum, in fact. I remember hearing but one clap of thunder while in that country. If I recollect aright, and my Russian served me well, one of the old natives told me that it was no mystery, this light of the aurora, for, said he, “we all believe that there are fire-mountains away up toward the north, and what we see comes from their burning throats, mirrored back on the heavens”. GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE.—The formation of these islands, St. Paul and St. George, was recent, geologically speaking, and directly due to volcanic agency, which lifted them abruptly, though gradually, from the sea-bed. Little spouting craters then actively poured out cinders and other voleanic breccia upon the table-bed of basalt, depositing below as well as above the water’s level as they rose; and subsequently finishing their work of construction through the agency of these spout-holes or craters, from which water-puddled ashes and tufa were thrown. Soon after the elevation and deposit of the igneous matter, all active volcanic action must have ceased, though a few half-smothered outbursts seem to have occurred very recently indeed; for on Bobrovia or Otter island, six miles southward of St. Paul, is the fresh, clearly blown-out throat, with the fire-scorched and smoked, smooth, sharp-cut, funnel-like walls of a crater. This is the only place on the seal-islands where there are any evidences of recent discharges from the crater of a volcano. Since the period of the upheaval of the group under discussion, the sea has done much to modify and even enlarge the most important one, St. Paul, while the others, St. George and Otter, being lifted abruptly above the power of water and ice to carry and deposit sand, soil, and bowlders, are but little changed from the condition of their first appearance. : VEGETATION.—The Russians tell a rather strange story in connection ai Pribylov’s landing. They say that both the islands were at first without vegetationt, save St. Paul, where there was a small ‘“ talneek”, or willow, creeping along on the ground; and that on St. George nothing grew, not even grass, except on the place where the carcasses of dead animals rotted. Then, in the course of time, both islands became covered with grass, a great part of it being of the sedge kind, Elymus. This record of Veniaminov, however, is scarcely credible; there are few, surely, who will not question the opinion that the seals antedated the vegetation, for, according to his own statements, those creatures were there then in the same immense numbers that we find them to-day. The vegetation on these islands, such as it is, is fresh and luxuriant during the growing season of June and July and early August, but the beauty and economic value of trees and shrubbery, of cereals and vegetables, is denied to them by climatic conditions. Still I am strongly inclined to believe that, should some of those hardy shrubs and spruce trees indigenous at Sitka or Kadiak, be transplanted properly to any of the southern hill-slopes of St. Paul most favored by soil, drainage, and blufis for shelter from saline gales, they might grow, though I know that, owing to the lack of sunlight, they would never mature their seed. There is, however, during the summer, a beautiful spread of grasses, of flowering annuals, biennials, and perennials, of gaily-colored lichens and crinkled mossest, which have always afforded me great delight whenever I have pressed my way over the moors and up the hillsides of the rookeries. There are ten or twelve species of grasses of every variety, from close, curly, compact mats to tall stalks— tussocks of the wild wheat, Elymus arenaria, standing in favorable seasons waist high—the “ wheat of the north”— together with over one hundred varieties of annuals, perennials, spagnum, cryptogamic plants, etc., all flourishing in their respective positions, and covering nearly every point of rock, tufa, cement, and sand that a plant can grow * Pontoppidan. +Veniaminov: Zapieskie Oonalashkenskaho Otdayla, etc., 1842. t The mosses at Kamminista, St. Paul, are the finest examples of their kind on the islands; they are very perfect and beautiful in many species. 12 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. : upon, with a living coat of the greenest of all greens—for there is not sunlight enough there to ripen any perceptible tinge of ocher-yellow into it—so green that it gives a deep blue tint to gray noonday shadows, contrasting pleasantly with the varying russets, reds, lemon-yellows, and grays of the lichen-covered rocks, and the brownish purple of the wild wheat on the sand-dune tracts in autu.in, together, also, with innumerable blue, yellow, pink, and white phenogamous blossoms, everywhere interspersed over the grassy uplands and sandy flats. Occasionally, on looking into the thickest masses of verdure, our common wild violet will be found, while the phloxes are especially bright and brilliant here. The flowers of one species of gentian, Gentiana verna, are very marked in their beauty; also those of a nasturtium, and a creeping pea-vine on the sand-dunes. The blossom of one species of the pulse family is the only one here that emits a positive, rich perfume; all the others are more suggestive of that quality than expressive. The most striking plant in all the long list is the Archangelica cfficinalis, with its tall seed-stalks and broad leaves, which grows first in spring and keeps green latest in the fall. The luxuriant rhubarb-like stems of this umbellifer, after they have made their rapid growth in June, are eagerly sought for by the natives, who pull them and crunch them between their teeth with all the relish that we experience in eating celery. The exhibition of ferns at Kamminista, St. Paul, during the summer of 1872, surpassed anything that I ever saw: I recall with vivid detail the exceedingly fine display made by these crenulated and waving fronds, as they reared themselves above the rough interstices of the rocky ridges. From the fern roots, and those of the gentian, the natives here draw their entire stock of vegetable medicines. This floral display on St. Paul is very much more extensive and conspicuous than that on St. George, owing to the absence of any noteworthy extent of warm sand-dune country on the latter island. When an unusually warm summer passes over the Pribylov group, followed by an open fall and a mild winter, the Elymus ripens its seed, and stands like fields of uncut grain, in many places along the north shore of St. Paul and around the village, the svow not falling enough to entirely obliterate it; but it is seldom allowed to flourish to that extent. By the end of August and the first week of September of normal seasons, the small edible berries of Empetrum nigrum and Rubus chamemorus are ripe. They are found in considerable quantities, especially at “Zapadnie”, on both islands, and, as everywhere else throughout the circumpolar latitudes, the former is small, watery, and dark, about the size of the English or black currant; the other resembles an unripe and partially decayed raspberry. They are, however, keenly relished by the natives, and even by the American residents, being the only fruit growing upon the islands. AGRICULTURE AND ITS POSSIBILITIES.—A great many attempts have been made, both here and at St. George, to raise a few of the hardy vegetables. With the exception of growing lettuce, turnips, and radishes on the island of St. Paul, nothing has been or can be done. On St. George, on the south shore, and at the foot of a — mural bluff, is a little patch of ground of less than one-sixteenth of an acre, that appears to be so drained and so warmed by the rarely-reflected sunlight from this cliff, every ray of which seems to be gathered and radiated trom the rocks, as to allow the production of fair turnips; and at one season there were actually raised potatoes as large as walnuts. Gardening, however, on either island involves so much labor and so much care, with so poor a return, that it has been discontinued. It is a great deal better, and a great deal easier, to have the “truck” come up once « year from San Francisco on the steamer. InsEcts.—There is one comfort which nature has vouchsafed to civilized man on these islands. There are very few indigenous insects. A large flesh-fly, Bombylius major, appears during the summer and settles in a striking manner upon the backs of the loafing natives, or strings itself in rows of millions upon the long grass-blades which ilourish over the killing grounds, especially on the leaf-stalks of the Elymus, causing this vegetation, on’ the whole - slaughtering-field and vicinity, to fairly droop to earth as if beaten down by a tornado of wind and rain. It makes the landscape look as though it had molded in the night, and the fungoid spores were blue and gray. Our common house-fly is not present; I never saw one while I was up there. The flesh-flies which I have just mentioned never came into the dwellings unless by accident: the natives say they do not annoy them, and I did not notice any disturbance among the few animals which the resident company had imported for beef and for service. Then, again, this is perhaps the only place in all Alaska where man, primitive and civilized, is not cursed by mosquitoes. There are none here. A gnat, that is disagreeably suggestive of the real enemy just referred to, flits about in large swarms, but it is inoffensive, and seeks shelter in the grass. Several species of beetles are also numerous here. One of them, the famous green and gold “carabus”, is exceedingly common, crawling everywhere, and is just as bright in the rich bronzing of its wing-shields as are its famous prototypes of Brazil. One or two species of Ichnewmon, a Cymindis, several representatives of the Aphidiphaga, one or two of Dytiscidw, three or four Cicindelide—these are nearly all that 1 found. A single dragon-fly, Perla bicaudata, tlitted over the lakes and ponds of St. Paul. The, to our eyes, familiar form of the bumble-bee, Bombus borealis, passing from flower to flower, was rarely seen; but a few are here resident. The Hydrocorise occur in great abundance, skipping over the water in the lakes and pools everywhere, and a very few species of butterflies, principally the yellow Nymphalida, are represented by numerous individuals. LAND MAMMALS.—Aside from the seal-life on the Pribylov islands, there is uo indigenous mammalian creature, with the exception of the blue and white foxes, Vulpes lagopus, and the lemming, Myodes obensis. The latter is THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 13 restricted, for some reason or other, to the island of St. George, where it is, or at least was, in 1874, very abundant. Its burrows and paths, under and among the grassy hummocks and mossy flats, checkered every square rod of land there covered with this vegetation. Although the island of St. Paul is but 29 or 30 miles to the northwest, not a single one of these active, curious little animals is found on it, nor could I learn from the natives that it had ever been seen there. The foxes are also restricted to these islands; that is, their kind, which are not found elsewhere, except the stray examples on St. Matthew seen by myself, and those which are carefully domesticated and preserved at Attoo. the extreme westernmost land of the Aleutian chain. These animals find comfortable holes for their accommodation and retreat on the seal-islands, among the countless chinks and crevices of the basaltic formation. They feed and grow fat upon sick and weakly seals, also devouring many of the pups, and they vary this diet by water-fowl and eggs* during the summer, returning for their subsistence during the long winter to the bodies of seals upon the breeding-grounds and the skinned carcasses left upon the killing-fields. Were they not regularly hunted from December until April, when their fur is in its prime beauty and condition, they would swarm like the lemming on St. George, and perhaps would soon be obliged to eat one another. The natives, however, thin them out by incessant trapping and shooting during the period when the seals are away from the islands. The Pribylov group is as yet free from rats; at least, none have got off from the ships. There is no harbor at either of these islands, and the ships lie out in the roadstead, so far from land that these pests do not venture to swim to the shore. Mice were long ago brought to shore in ships’ cargoes, and they are a great nuisance to the white people as well as the natives throughout the islands. Hence cats also are abundant. Nowhere perhaps in the wide world are such cats to be seen as these. The tabby of our acquaintance, when she goes up there and lives upon the seal-meat spread everywhere under her nose, is metamorphosed, by time of the second generation, into a stubby feline ball; in other words, she becomes thickened, short, and loses part of the normal length of her tail; also her voice is prolonged and resonant far beyond the misery which she inflicts upon our ears here. These cats actually swarm about the natives’ houses, never in them much, for only a tithe of their whole number can be made pets of; but they do make night hideous beyond all description. They repair for shelter, often, to the chinks of precipices, and bluffs, but, although not exactly wild, yet they cannot be approached or cajoled. The natives, when their sluggish wits are periodically thoroughly aroused and disturbed by the volume of cat-calls in the village, sally out and by a vigorous effort abate the nuisance for the time being. The most extravagant eaterwauling alone will or can arouse this Aleutian ire. STock AND POULTRY-RAISING.—On account of the severe climatic conditions it is of course impracticable to keep stock here with any profit or pleasure. The experiment has been tried faithfully. Itis found best to bring beef-cattle up in the spring on the steamer, turn them out to pasture until the close of the season, in October and November, and then, if the snow comes, to kill them and keep them refrigerated the rest of the year. Stock cannot be profitably raised here, the proportion of severe weather annually is too great—trom three to perhaps six months of every year they require feeding and watering, with good shelter. To furnish an animal with hay and grain up there is a costly matter, and the dampness of the growing summer season on both islands renders hay-making impracticable. Perhaps a few head of hardy Siberian cattle might pick up a living on the north shore of St. Paul, among the grasses and sand-dunes there, with nothing more than shelter and water given them, but they would need both of those attentions. Then the care of them would hardly return expenses, as the entire grazing ground could not support any number of animals. It is less than two square miles in extent, and half of this area is unproductive. Then, too, a struggle for existence would reduce the flesh and vitality of these cattle to so low an ebb, that it is doubtful whether they could be put through another winter alive, especially if severe. I was then, and am now, strongly inclined to think, that if a few of those Siberian reindeer could be brought over to St. Paul and to St. George, they would make a very successful struggle for existence, and be a source of a g*»i supply, summer and winter, of fresh meat for the agents of the government and the company who may be living upon the islands. I do not think that they would be inclined to molest or visit the seal-grounds; at least, I noticed that the cattle and mules of the company running loose on St. Paul, were careful never to poke around on the outskirts of a rookery, and deer would be more timid and less obtrusive than our domesticated animals. But I did notice on St. George that a little squad of sheep, brought up and turned out there for a summer’s feeding, seemed to be so attracted by the quiet calls of the pups on the rookeries, that they were drawn to and remained by the seals without disturbing them at all, to their own physical detriment, for they lost better “The temerity of the fox is wonderful to contemplate, as it goes on a full run or stealthy tread up and down and along the faces of almost inaccessible bluffs, in search of old and young birds and their nests and eggs, for which the ‘‘peestchee” have a keen relish. The fox always brings the egg up in its mouth, and, carrying it back a few feet from the brink of the precipice, leisurely and with gusto breaks the larger end and sucks the contents from the shell. One of the curious sights of my notice in this connection, was the sly, artful, and insidious advances of Reynard at Tolstoi Mees, St. George, where, conspicuous and elegant in its fluffy white dress, it cunnmgly stretched on its back as though dead, making no sign of life whatever, save to gently hoist its thick brush now and then; whereupon many dull, enrions sea-birds, Graculus bicristatus, in their intense desire to know all about it, flew in narrowing circles overhead, lower and lower, closer and closer, until one of them came within the sure reach of a sudden spring and a pair of quick snapping jaws, while the gulls and others, rising safe and high above, screamed out in seeming contempt for the struggles of the unhappy ‘‘shag”, and rendered hideous approbation, 14 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. “ pasturage by so doing. ‘Lhe natives of St. Paul have a strange passion for seal-fed pork, and there are quite a large number of hogs on the island of St. Paul and a few on St. George. The pigs soon become entirely carnivorous, living, to the practical exclusion of all other diet, on the carcasses of seals. Chickens are kept with much difficulty, in fact it is only possible to save their lives when the natives take them into their own rooms, or keep them above their heads, in their dwellings, during winter. BrRp-LIFE.— While the great exhibition of pinnipedia preponderates over every other feature of animal life on the seal-islands, still we find a wonderful aggregate of ornithological representation thereon. The spectacle of birds nesting and breeding, as they do at St. George island, to the number of millions, flecking those high basaltic blufis of its shore-line, 29 miles in length, with color-patches of black, brown, and white, as they perch or cling to the mural cliffs in the labor of incubation, is a sight of exceeding attraction and constant novelty. It affords the naturalist an opportunity of a life-time for minute investigation into all the details of the reproduction of these vast flocks of cireumboreal water-fowl. The island of St. Paul, owing to the low character of its shore-line, a large proportion of which is but slightly elevated above the sea and is sandy, is not visited, and cannot be visited, by such myriads of birds as are seen at St. George; but the small, rocky Walrus islet is fairly covered with sea-fowls, and the Otter island bluffs are crowded by them to their utmost capacity of reception. The birds string themselves anew around the cliffs with every succeeding season, like endless ribbons stretched across their rugged faces, while their numbers are simply countless. The variety is not great, however, in these millions of breeding-birds. It consists of only ten or twelve names; the whole list of avafauna belonging to the Pribylov islands, stragglers and migatory, contains but 40 species. Conspicuous among the last-named class is the robin, a straggler which was brought from the main land, evidently against its own effort, by a storm or a gale of wind, which also brings against their will the solitary hawks, owls, and waders, occasionally noticed here. After the dead silence of a long ice-bound winter, the arrival of large flocks of those sparrows of the north, the “choochkies,” Phaleris microceros, is most cheerful and interesting. Those plump little auks are bright, fearless, vivacious birds, with bodies round and fat. They come usually in chattering flocks on or immediately after the 1st of May, and are caught by the people with hand-scoops or dip-nets to any number that may be required for the day’s consumption; their tiny, rotund forms making pies of rare, savory virtue, and being also baked and roasted and stewed in every conceivable shape by the Russian cooks—indeed they are equal to the reed-birds of the South. These welcome visitors are succeeded along about the 20th of July by large flocks of fat, red-legged turn-stones, Strepsilas interpres, which come in suddenly from the west or north, where they have been breeding, and stop on the islands for a month or six weeks, as the case may be, to feed luxuriantly upon the flesh-flies, which we have just noticed, and their eggs. Those handsome birds go in among the seals, familiarly chasing the flies, gnats, ete. They are followed, as they leave in September, by several species of jack-snipe and a plover, Tringa and Charadrius ; these, however, soon depart, as early as the end of October and the beginning of November, and then winter fairly closes in upon the islands; the loud, roaring, incessant seal-din, together with the screams and darkening flight of innumerable water-fowl, are replaced in turn again by absolute silence, marking out as it were in lines of sharp and vivid contrast, summer’s life and winter’s death. The author of that quaint old saying, ‘‘ Birds of a feather flock together,” might well have gained his inspiration had he stood under the high bluffs of St. George at any season, prehistoric or present, during the breeding of the water-birds there, where myriads of croaking murres and flocks of screaming gulls darken the light of day with their fluttering forms, and deafen the ear with their shrill, harsh cries as they do now, for music is denied to all those birds of the sea. Still, in spite of the apparent confusion, he would have taken cognizance of the fact, that each species had its particular location and kept to its own boundary, according to the precision of natural law. FIsHES.—With regard to the herpetology of the islands, I may state that the most careful search on my part was not rewarded by the discovery of a single reptile. In the province of ichthyology I gathered only a few specimens, the scarcity of fish being easily traceable to the presence of the seals on the grounds here. Naturally enough the finny tribes avoid the seal-churned waters for at least one hundred miles around. Among the few specimens, however, which I collected, three or four species new to natural science were found and have since been named by experts in the Smithsonian Institution. The presence of such great numbers of amphibian mammalia about the waters, during five or six months of every year, renders all fishing abortive, and unless expeditions are made seven or eight miles at least from the land, and you desire to catch large halibut, it is a waste of time to cast your line over the gunwhale of the boat. ‘The natives capture “poltoos” or halibut, Hippoglossus vulgaris, within two or three miles of the Reef-point on St. Paul and the south shore during July and August. After this season the weather is usually so stormy and cold that the fishermen venture no more until the ensuing summer. AQUATIC INVERTEBRATES.—With regard to the Mollusca of the Pribyloy waters, the characteristic forms of Toxoglossata and Heteroglossata peculiar to this north latitude are most abundant; of the Cephalopoda I have seen only a species of squid, Sepia loligo. The clustering whelks, Buccinoid, literally conceal large areas of the bowlders on the beaches here and there; they are in immense numbers, and are crushed under your foot at almost — THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 15 every step when you pass over long reaches of rocky shingle at low tide. NX Sa e. ee «7 / eps “XT 978Id ‘SGNV1SI-TVHS—udesbouop THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. Oy three or four weeks that they are engaged in the work. The “holluschickie” are driven from the large hauling- grounds on the sand-flats immediately adjacent to the killing-grounds, being ob- tained without the slightest difficulty. Here also was the site of a village, once the largest one on this island ere its trans- fer to the sole control and charge of the old Russian-American Company, ten years after its discovery in 1787. The ancient cemetery and the turf lines of the decayed il barraboras are still plainly visible. HN “HK Ne aN AS AN The campany’s steamer runs up here, : ae At NN a \\S watching her opportunity, and drops her Moe ae ey. PARADE anchor, as indicated on the general chart, K WZ Fant Grass Smooth fielet uf Cement a MUTTON, Pool == %, right south of the salt-house, in about four fathoms of water; and the skins are in- variably hustled aboard, no time being lost, | aD because it is an exceedingly uncertain place 4 ZNGINS) een to safely load the vessel. There is no impression in my mind really more vivid, than is the one which was planted there during the afternoon of that July day, when I first made my survey of this ground; indeed, whenever I pause to SINORLH waa - POIN Ss think of the subject, the great rookery of Novastoshnah rises promptly to my view, Seale: 7] = ee and I am fairly rendered voiceless as I try me to speak in definition of the spectacle. In the first place, this slope from Sea Lion neck to the summit of Hutchinson’s hill is a long mile, smooth and gradual from the sea to the hill-top; the parade ground lying between is also nearly three-quarters of a mile in width, sheer and unbroken. Now, upon that area before my eyes, this day and date of which I have spoken, were the forms of not less than three-fourths of a million seals—pause a moment—think of the number—three-fourths of a million seals moving in one solid mass from sleep to frolicksome gambols, backward, forward, over, around, changing and interchanging their. heavy squadrons, until the whole mind is so ‘confused and charmed by the vastness of mighty hosts that it refuses to analyze any further. Then, too, | remember that the day was one of exceeding beauty for that region; it was a swift alternation over head of those characteristic rain fogs, between the succession of which the sun breaks out with transcendent brilliancy through the misty halos _ about it; this parade-field reflected the light like a mirror, and the seals, when they broke apart here and there for a moment, just enough to show its surface, seemed as though they walked upon the water. What a scene to put upon canvas—that amphibian host involved in those alternate rainbow lights and blue-gray shadows of the fog! RECAPITULATION OF THE ESTIMATES OF NUMBER OF SEALS.—Below is a recapitulation of these figures made from my surveys of the area and position of the breeding-grounds of St. Paul island, between the 10th and 18th of July, 1872, confirmed and revised to that date in 1874. Itis the first survey ever aede on the island of its rookeries: | Number of Breeding-grounds of the fur-seal, on St. Paul island. coals, Lee young. “Reef rookery” has 4,016 feet of sea-margin, with 150 feet of average depth, making ground for..-...--.--.-..----.---- 301, 000 “Gorbotch rookery” has 3,660 feet of sea-margin, with 100 feet of average depth, making ground for-..------..---.------ 183, 000 “Lagoon rookery” has 750 feet of sea-margin, with 100 feet of average depth, making ground for ...--...--.-.-----.---- 37, 000 “Nah Speel rookery ” has 400 feet of sea-margin, with 40 feet of average depth, making ground for.....-..--.-..-.------- 8, 000 “Lukannon rookery ” has 2,270 feet of sea-margin, with 150 feet of average depth, making ground for. ...--...---. el 170, 000 “Keetavie rookery” has 2,200 feet of sea-margin, with 150 feet of average depth, making ground for...-..--......---.--- 165, 000 “Tolstoi rookery” has 3,000 feet of sea margin, with 150 feet of average depth, making ground for...---...--.......----- 225, 000 “Zapadnie rookery” has 5,880 feet of sea-margin, with 150 feet of average depth, making ground for...-........---.-.-- 441, 000 “ Polavina rookery” has 4,000 feet of sea-margin, with 150 feet of average depth, making ground for .---.....--...-.---- 300, 000 “Novastoshnah, or Northeast point” has 15,840 feet of sea-margin, with 150 feet of average depth, making ground for-.--- 1, 200, 000 A grand total of breeding-seals and young for St. Paul island in 1874 of ...-...--... 2-22. ------ 2-22 = eee eee eee eee 3, 030, 000 58 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. ~ ST. GEORGE.—St. George is now in order, and this island has only a trifling contribution for the grand total of the seal-life; but small as it is, it is of much value and interest. Certainly Pribylov, not knowing of the existence of St. Paul, was as well satisfied as if he had possessed the boundless universe, when he first found it. As in the case of St. Paul island, I have been unable to learn much here in regard to the early status of the rookeries, none of the natives having any real information. The drift of their sentiment goes to show that there never was a great assemblage of jur-seals on St. George; in fact, never as many as there are to-day, insignificant as the exhibit is, compared with that of St. Paul. They say that, at first, the sea-lions owned this island, and that the Russians, becoming cognizant of the fact, made a regular business of driving off the ‘‘seevitchie”, in order that the fur-seals might be encouraged to land. Touching this statement, with my experience on St. Panl, where there is no conflict at all between the fifteen or twenty thousand sea-lions which breed around on the outer edge of the seal-rookeries there, and at Southwest point, I cannot agree to the St. George legend. I am inclined to believe, however, indeed it is more than probable, that there were a great many more sea-lions on and about St. George before it was occupied by men—a hundred-fold greater, perhaps, than now; because, a sea-lionis an exceedingly timid, cowardly creature when it is in the proximity of man, and will always desert any resting place where it is constantly brought into contact with him.* The scantiness of the St. George rookeries, is due to the configuration of the island itself; There are five separate, well-defined rookeries on St. George, as follows :— ZAPADNIE ROOKERY.—Directly across the island, from its north shore to Zapadnie bay, a little over three miles from the village, is a point where the southern bluff-walls of the island turn north, and drop quickly down from their lofty elevation in a succession of heavy terraces, to an expanse of rocky flat, bordered by a sea sand-beach; just between the sand-beach, however, and these terraces, is a stretch of about 2,000 feet of low, rocky shingle, which borders the flat country back of it, and upon which the surf breaks free and boldly. Midway between the two points is the rookery; and a small detachment of it rests on the direct sloping of the bluff itself, to the southward ; while in and around the rookery, falling back to some distance, the “hol- luschickie” are found. A great many confusing statements have been made to me about this rookery—more than in regard to any other on the islands. It has been said, with much positiveness, that, in the times of the Russian rule, this was an immense rookery for St. George; or, in other- words, it covered the entire ground between that low LOW PLATEAU 4, 7, Wie, ZAPADNITE ROCKY FLATS Whe LR \ M Yr, | TAN plateau to the north and the high plateau to the south, Ol YU a . . CANA ANA N i, as indicated on the map; and it is also cited in proof of f ( NN f i WM) this that the main village of the island, for many years, ~~ {i thirty or forty, was placed on or near the limited Ree a drifting sand-dune tracts just above the plateau, to the ep aT westward. Be the case as it may, it is certain that for a great, great many years back, no such rookery has HIGH PLATEAU ever existed here. When seals have rested on a chosen piece of ground to breed, they wear off the sharp edges of _ fractured basaltic bowlders, and polish the breccia and cement between them so thoroughly and so finely that years and years of chiseling by frost, and covering by lichens, and creeping of mosses, will be required to efface that record. Hence I was able, acting on the suggestion of the natives at St. Paul, to trace out those deserted fur-seal rookeries *This statement of the natives has a strong circumstantial backing by the published account of Choris, a French gentleman of leisure, and amateur naturalist and artist, who landed at St. George in 1820 (July); he passed several days off and on the land; he wrote at short length in regard to the sea-lion, saying ‘‘that the shores were covered with innumerable troops of sea-lions. .The odor which arose from them was insupportable. These animals were all the time rutting”, ete., yet nowhere does he speak in the chapter, or elsewhere in his volume, of the fur-seal on St. George, but incidentally remarks that over on St. Paul it is the chief animal and most abundant.— Voyage Pittoresque au tour du Monde, Iles Aléoutiennes, pp. 12,13, pl. xiv. 1222. Although this writing of Choris in regard to the subject is brief, superficial, and indefinite, yet I value the record he made, because it is prima facie evidence, to my mind, that had the fur-seal been nearly as numerous on St. George then as it was on St. Paul, he would have spoken of the fact surely, inasmuch as he was searching for just such items with which to illuminate his projected book of travels. The old Russian record as to the relative number of fur-seals on the two islands of St. George and St. Paul is clearly as palpably erroneous for 1820, as I found it to be in 1872, 1873. No intelligent steps toward ascertaining that ratio were ever taken until I made my survey. — THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 59 on the shores of that island. At Maroonitch, which had, according to their account, been abandoned for over sixty years by the seals, still, at their prompting, when I searched the shore, I found the old boundaries tolerably well defined; I could find nothing like them at Zapadnie. Zapadnie rookery in July, 1873, had 600 feet of sea-margin, with 60 feet of average depth; making ground for 18,000 breeding-seals and their young. In 1874, I resurveyed the field and it seemed very clear to me that there had been a slight increase, perhaps to the number of 5,000, according to the expansion of the superficial area over that of 1873. From Zapadnie we pass to the north shore, where all the other rookeries are located, with the village at a central point between them on the immediate border of the sea. And, in connection with this point, it is interesting to record the fact that every year, until recently, it has been the regular habit of the natives to drive the ‘“‘holluschickie” over the two and a half or three miles of rough basaltic uplands which separate the hauling-ground of Zapadnie from the village; driving them to the killing-grounds there, in order to save the delay and trouble generally experienced in loading these skins in the open bay. The prevailing westerly and northwesterly winds during July and August, make it, for weeks at a time, a marine impossibility to effect a landing at Zapadnie, suitable for the safe transit of cargo to the steamer. This three miles of the roughest of all rough walks that can be imagined, is made by -the fur-seals in about seven or eight hours, when driven by the Aleuts; and, the weather is cool and toggy. I have known one treasury agent, who, after making the trip from the village to Zapadnie, seated himself down in the barrabkie there, and declared that no money would induce him to walk back the same way that same day—so * [f7jzj/-=—aa—»_ >A ————————— XN s severe is the exercise to one not accustomed s8 WS = S$ toit; but it exhibits the power of land-loco. |Z SSS z te motion possessed by the “ holluschickie”.* STARRY ATEELt.—This rookery is the Yi next in order, and it is the most remark- 5 ST ‘ARRY ATEEL able one on St. George, lying as it does in : a bold sweep from the sea, up a steeply Bie Scale: eS inclined slope to a pomt where the bluffs bordering it seaward are over 400 feet high; the seals being just as closely crowded at the summit of this lofty breeding plat as they are at the water’s edge; the whole ob- t‘*Starry Ateel” or “Old Settlement”; a few hundred yards to the eastward of the rookery, is the earthen ruins of one of the pioneer settlements in Pribyloy’s time, and which, the natives say, marks the first spot selected by the Russians for their village after the discovery of St. George, in 1786. tI have been repeatedly astonished at the amazing power possessed by the fur-seal, of resistance to shocks which would certainly kill any other animal. To explain clearly, the reader will observe, by reference to the maps, that there are a great many cliffy places between the rookeries on the shore-lines of the islands. Some of these cliffs are more: than 100 feet in abrupt elevation above the surf and rocks awash below. Frequently “holluschickie”, in ones, or twos, or threes will stray far away back from the great masses of their kind, and fall asleep in the thick grass and herbage which covers these mural reaches. Sometimes they will lie down and rest very close to the edge, and then as you come tramping along you discover and startle them and yourself alike. They, blinded by their first transports of alarm, leap promptly over the brink, snorting, coughing, and spitting as they go. Curiously peering after them and looking down upon the rocks, 50 to 100 feet below, instead of seeing their stunned and motionless bodies, you will invariably catch sight of them rapidly scrambling into the water; and, when in 1t, swimming off like arrows from the bow. Three “‘holluschickie” were thus y 60 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. | ~ eastward of this rookery, over which the ‘‘holluschickie” haul in proportionate numbers, and from which the natives make their drives, coming from the village for this purpose, and directing the seals back, in their tracks.* Starry Ateel has 500 feet of sea and cliff margin, with 125 feet of average depth, making ground for 30,420 breeding-seals and their young. - NORTH ROOKERY.—Next in order, and half a mile to the eastward, is this breed- ing-ground, which sweeps for 2,750 feet along and around the sea-frontof a gently sloping plateau;+ being in full sight of and close to the village. It has a super- ficial area occupied by 77,000 breeding- Angee 3} seals and their young. From this rool:- z ety eee 2 INS ORE get ery to the village, a distance of less than Ce g @ ia 4 anes ow ~ a : . je tars Gress: ana very Ficctey, ita a quarter of a mile, the “holluschickie” Sink Crass are driven which are killed for their and Rocky skins, on the common track or seal-worn trail, that, not only the “bachelors” but ourselves travel over en route to and from : Starry Ateel and Zapadnie; it isa broad, NORTH ROOKERY Tale hard-packed erosion through the sphag- . SHE Oe pee : = num, and across the rocky plateaux—in ara / ele fact a regular seal-road, which has been used by the drivers and victims during the last eighty or ninety years. The fashion on St. George, in this matter of ————= SS. i driving seals, is quite different from that on St. Paul. To eet ae maximum quota of 2 25, 000 Warman. a is necessary for the natives to visit every morning the hauling-grounds of each one of these four Tooker on the north shore, and bring what they may find back with them for the day. ; inadvertently surprised by me on the edge of the west face to Otter island. They plunged over from an elevation, there, not less than 200 feet in sheer elevation, and I distinctly saw them fall in scrambling, whirling evolutions, down, thumping upon the rocky shingle beneath, from which they bounded, as they struck, like so many rubber balls. Two of them never moved after the rebound ceased, but the third one reached the water and swam away like a bird on the wing, While they seem to escape without bodily injury incident to such hard falls as ensue from dropping 50 or 60 feet upon pebbly beaches and rough bowlders below, and even greater elevations, yet I am inclined to think that some internal injuries are necessarily sustained in MORE every case, which soon develop and cause death; the excitement and the vitality of the seal, at the moment of the terrific shock, is able to sustain and conceal the real i injury for the fans being. * Driving the ‘“holluschickie” on St. George, owing to the relative scantiness of hauling area for those animals there, and consequent " small numbers found upon these grounds at any one time, is a very arduous series of daily exercises on the part of the natives who attend to it. Glancing at the map, the marked considerable distance, over an exceedingly rough road, will be noticed between Zapadnie and the village; yet, in 1872, eleven different drives across the island, of 400 to 500 seals each, were made in the short four weeks of that season. The following table shows plainly the striking inferiority of the seal-life, as to aggregate number, on this island, compared with that of St. Paul: Rookeries of St. George. Number of drives | Number of seals made in 1872. | driven. ‘‘Zapadnie”’ (between June 14 and July 28) .----. 2-22 22a s onan cone ene we en ee a nn nnn 11 5, 194 Starry Atel ) /(De tiveex el me 6 eux eh tll p29) ete ele te ere ee elma inl me element im 14 5, 274 “North Rookery” (between June 1 and July 27) 16 4, 818 BUMS ttle astern: te cree oats ace oe ee Oe ee ee ear a Ene im eee SIR RISES Se ale eo iar ec | elt “Great Eastern” (between June 5 and July 28) 16 9, 714 The same activity in “sweeping” the hauling-grounds of St. Paul would bring in ten times as many seals, and the labor be vastly less; the driving at St. Paul is generally done with an eye to securing Sue day of the season only as many as can be well killed and skinned on that day, according as it be warmish or cooler. +I should say ‘‘a gently sloping and alternating bluff plateau”; 2,000 feet are directly under the abrupt faces of low cliffs, while the other 750 feet slope down gradually to the water’s edge; these narrow cliff belts of breeding fur-seals ay be properly styled ‘‘rookery ribbons”. ‘dnouiy AOTACIdd ‘puels, o6aoen 49 "THAHLV AAAVLS OL LSUM ONIAOOT ‘AYANOOMA HLYON AHL AO MaIA. popy Aaimys |} SHUTT TST | es D = = z 2 Sno ig & Bopp, sa SO ae eZ ee oT LOM y ayy Ge ao We 22s cy t if = . ee LIEN ae res he files > ae ee Ae IU L ae ae rani Vary St is s oe =o oe <5 a a) oe PASE PCy stay e Ve pseke 2 eck ANY sp Des Wexy oy Toy O oe oa D ith ony, ie I Big AH POLE RTO TNAM EES NT ee Ze CAN re Uae ote, B/G SV af a wy TA Noy WW soul J \ + U 42. zal Via Jaq CU 29 oo ven by ay i \ irc ~ z. Hg NR Deg aS a) y gs YS £ Gs uy wate “i ty AMM fe gee 3 Kam Ke Che ANS LAT MPT ANT yy Ly Cee, Z, EN iinet oe ‘sup 4 ae ‘SSGNV1SI-TvVaS—uydeubouoyy ‘X 281d THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA, 61 LITTLE EASTERN ROOKERY.*—From the village to the eastward, about half a mile again, is a little eastern rookery, which lies on a low, bluffy slope, and is not a piece of ground admitting of much more expansion. It has superficial area for the recep- tion of nearly 13,000 breeding-seals and their young. THE GREAT EASTERN.—This is the last rookery that we find on St. George. It is an imitation, in miniature, of Tolstoi on St. Paul, with the exception of there being no parade- ground in the rear, of any character whatever. It is from the summit of the cliffs, overlooking the narrow ribbon of breeding-seals right under them, that I have been able to study the move- ments of the fur-seal in the water to my heart’s content; for out, and under the water, the rocks, ‘to a considerable distance, are covered with a whitish algoid growth, that renders the dark bodies of the swimming seals and sea-lions as conspicuous as is the image thrown by a magic LITTLE EASTERN lantern of a silhouette on a screen prepared for its ; reception.t The low rocky flats around the pool to the westward and northwest of the rookery seem to be filled up with a muddy alluvial wash that the seals do not favor; hence nothing but “holluschickie” range round about them. RECAPITULATION.—In recapitulation, there- fore, the breeding-grounds on St. George island, according to the surveys which I made between the 12th and 15th of July, 1873, gave the follow- ing figures. They are also, as in the case of St. Paul, the first surveys ever made here: LOW PLATEAU Very Rocky. -Larreant Grass” Scale: Name of breeding-grounds, July 12-15, 1873. | Seals: ¢2©. 2 Gare = se e BERS! SOLAS pate: a7 fd ““Zapadnie rookery ” has 600 feet of sea-margin, with 60 feet of average depth, making ground for ............-.-.-------- | 18, 000 “Starry Ateel” rookery has 500 feet of sea-margin, with 125 feet of average depth, making sround for... -2.-...+--: --2.-. | 30, 420 “North rookery” has 750 feet of sea-margin, with 150 feet of average depth, and 2,000 feet of sea-margin, with 25 feet of eMC GD uly, mi aLn ero TONNO Le LOR eee eM oe os 2s 2) Ae as Sl GI SEE eS eee Nc Mees oi Be lose ceeals eee) 77, 000 “Little Eastern” rookery has 750 feet of sea-margin, with 40 feet of average depth, making ground for............---..--- 13, 000 “Great Eastern” rookery has 900 feet of sea-margin, with 60 feet of average depth, making ground for............---.---- 25, 000 A grand total of the seal-life for St. George island, breeding-seals and young, of.........-.....-.------22--2--------- 163, 420 Grand total for St. Paul island, brought forward, breeding-seals and young, of ...-....-2-----.-.--202 222+ seeeee ole 3, 030, 000 Grand sum total for the Pribyloy islands (season of 1873), breeding-seals and young...-....-.--...-----.----------- 3, 193, 420 The figures above thus show a grand total of 3,193,420 breeding-seals and their young. This enormous aggregate is entirely exclusive of the great numbers of the uon-breeding seals, that, as we have pointed out, are never permitted to come up on those grounds which have been surveyed and epitomized by the table just exhibited. That class of seals, the “holluschickie”, in general terms, all males, and those to which the killing is confined, come up on the land an sea-beaches between the r eas: in immense straggling droves, going to and from the sea at * The site of this paeediaeennent and that of the marine eee of the killing-grounds to the east of the alleen ; on this island, where sea-lions held exclusive possession prior to their driving off by the Russians—so the natives affirm—the only place on St. Gobie now where the Humelopias breeds, is that one indicated on the general chart, between Garden cove and Tolstoi Mees. +The algoid vegetation of the marine shores of these islands is one that adds a peculiar charm and beauty to their treeless, sunless coasts. Every kelp bed that floats raft-like in Bering sea, or is anchored to its rocky reefs, is fairly alive with minute sea-shrimps, tiny crabs, and little shells which cling to its masses of interwoven fronds or dart in ceaseless motion through, yet within its interstices. It is my firm belief that no better base of operations can be found for studying marine invertebrata than is the post of St. Paul or St. George; the pelagic and the littoral forms are simply abundant beyond all estimation within bounds of reason. The phosphorescence of the waters of Bering sea surpasses, in continued strength of brilliant illumination, anything that I have seen in southern and equatorial oceans. The crests of the long unbroken line of breakers on Lukannon beach looked to me, one night in August, like an instantaneous flashing of lightning, 62 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. irregular intervals, from the beginning to the closing of the entire season. The method of the “holluschickie” on these hauling-grounds is not systematic—it is not distinct, like the manner and law prescribed and obeyed by the breeding- Seals, which fill up those rookery-grounds to the certain points as surveyed, and keep these points intact for a week or ten days, at a time, during the height of every season in July and August; but, to the contrary, upon the hauling-grounds to-day, an im- meuse drove of 100,000: will be seen before you at English bay, sweeping hither and surging thither over the polished. surface which they have worn with their restless flippers, tracing and retracing their tire- less marches; consequently the amount of . ground occupied by the “holluschickie” is vastly in excess of what they would require did they conform to the same law of distri- “s bution observed by the breeding seals; and this ground is therefore wholly untenable GREAT HASTERN ; for any such definite basis and satisfactory Scale: Se conclusion as is that which I have surveyed 258 Wale on the rookeries. Hence, in giving an esti- mate of the aggregate number of ‘“hollus- chickie” or non-breeding seals, on the Priby- lov islands, embracing as it does all the males under six and seven years of age and all the yearling females, it must, necessarily, be a simple opinion of mine founded upon nothing better than my individual judgment. This is my conclusion: The non-breeding seals seem nearly equal in number to that of the adult breeding-seals; but without putting them down at a figure quite so high, I may safely say that the sum total of 1,500,000, in round numbers, is a fair enumeration, and quite within bounds of fact. This makes the grand sum total, of the fur-seal life on the Pribylov islands, over 4,700,000. 5 THE INCREASE OR DIMINUTION OF THE SEAL-LIFE, PAST, PRESENT, AND PROSPECOTIVE.—One stereotyped question has been addressed to me universally by my friends since my return, first in 1873, from the seal-islands. The query is: “At the present rate of killing the seals, it will not be long ere they are exterminated; how much | longer will they last?” My answer is now as it was then, ‘‘ Provided matters are conducted on the seal-islands in the future as they are to-day, 100,000 male seals under the age of five years and over one, may be safely taken every year from the Pribylov islands, without the slightest injury to the regular birth-rates, or natural increase thereon; provided, also, that the fur-seals are not visited by any plague, or pests, or any abnormal cause for their destruction, which might be beyond the control of men; and to which, like any other great body of animal life, they mnust ever be subjected to the danger of.”* LOsSs OF LIFE SUSTAINED BY THE YOUNG SEALS.—From my calculations, given above, it will be seen that 1,000,000 pups, or young seals, in round numbers, are born upon these islands of the Pribyloy group every year; of this million, one-half are males. These 500,000 young males, before they leave the islands for sea, during October and November, and when they are between five and six months old, fat and hardy, have suffered but a trifling loss in numbers, say one per cent., while on and about the islands of their birth, surrounding which, and upon which, they have no enemies whatever to speak of; but, after they get well down to the Pacific, spread out over an immense area of watery highways in quest of piscatorial food, they form the most helpless of their kind to resist the surface of the sea, they were marked by a blaze of scintillant light. ‘ *The thought of what a deadly epidemic would effect among these vast congregations of Pinnepedia was one that was constant in my mind when on the ground and among them. I have found in the British Annals (Fleming’s), on page 17, an extract from the notes of Dr. Trail: “In 1833 Linquired for my old acquaintances, the seals of the Hole of Papa Westray, and was informed that about four years before they had totally deserted the island, and had only within the last few months begun to ‘reappear. * * * About fifty years ago multitudes of their carcasses were cast ashore in every bay in the north of Scotland, Orkney, and Shetland, and numbers were found at sea in a sickly state.” This note of Trail is the only record which I can find of a fatal epidemic among the seals; it is not reasonable to suppose that the Pribylov rookeries have never suffered from distempers in the past, or are not to, in the future, simply because no occasion seems to have arisen during the comparatively brief period of their human domination. THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 63 - or elude the murderous teeth and carnivorous attacks of basking sharks* and killer-whalest. By these agencies, during their absence from the islands until their reappearance in the following year, and in July, they are so perceptibly diminished in number that I do not think, fairly considered, more than one-half of the legion which left the ground of their birth, last October, came up the next July to these favorite landing-places; that is, only 250,000 of them return out of the 500,000 born last year. The same statement, in every respect, applies to the going and the coming of the 500,000 female pups, which are identical in size, shape, and behavior. As yearlings, however, these 250,000 survivors, of last year’s birth, have become strong, lithe, and active swimmers; and, when they again leave the hauling-grounds as before, in the fall, they are fully as able as are the older class to take care of themselves; and when they reappear next year, at least 225,000 of them safely return in the second season after birth; from this on I believe that they live out their natural lives of fifteen to twenty years each; the death-rate now caused by the visitation of marine enemies affecting them, in the aggregate, but slightly. And again, the same will hold good touching the females, the average natural life of which, however, I take to be only nine or ten years each. Out of these 225,000 young males, we are required to save only one-fifteenth of their number to pass over to the breéding-grounds, and meet there the 225,000 young females; in other words, the polygamous habit of this animal is such that, by its own volition, I do not Fila that more than one male annually out of fifteen born is needed on the breeding-grounds in the future; but in my calculations, to be within the margin and to make sure that I save two-year-old males enough every season, I will more than double this proportion, and set aside every fifth one of the young males in question; that will leave 180,000 seals, in good condition, that can be safely killed every year, without the slightest injury to the perpetuation of the stock itself forever in all its original integrity.t In the above showing I have put the very extreme estimate upon the loss sustained at sea by the pup-seals too large, I am morally certain; but, in attempting to draw this line safely, I wish to place the matter in the very worst light in which it can be put, and to give the seals the full benefit of every doubt. Surely I have clearly presented the case, and certainly no one will question the premises after they have studied the habit and disposition of the rookeries; hence, it is a positive and tenable statement, that no danger of the slightest appreciable degree of injury to the interests of the government on the seal-islands of Alaska, exists as long as the present law protecting it, and the management executing it, continues. COURSE PURSUED BY THE SEALS AFTER LEAVING THE ISLANDS.—These fur-seals of the Pribyloy group, after leaving the islands in the autumn and early winter, do not visit land again until the time of their return in the following spring and early summer, to these same rookery- and hauling-grounds, unless they touch, as they are navigating their lengthened journey back, at the Russian Copper, and Bering islands, 700 miles to the westward of the Pribylov group. They leave the islands by independent squads, each one looking out for itself; apparently all turn by common consent to the south, disappearing toward the horizon, and are soon lost in the vast expanse below, where they spread themselves over the entire North Pacific as far south as the 48th and even the 47th parallels of north latitude. Over the immense area between Japan and Oregon, doubtless, many extensive SES ES shoals and banks are known to them; at least, it is definitely understood that ae sea does * Somniosus micr boonatan Some of these sharks are of very large size, and when axis by the Tans of ene noe coast, basking or asleep on the surface of the sea, they will, if transfixed by the native’s harpoons, take a whole fleet of canoes in tow and run swiftly with them several hours before sling enables the savages to finally dispatch them. A Hudson Bay trader, William Manson (at Ft. Alexander, in 1865), told me that his father had killed one in the smooth waters of Millbank sound, which measured 24 feet in length, and its liver alone yielded 36 gallons of oil. The Somniosus lays motionless for long intervals in calm waters of the North Pacific, just under and at the surface, with its dorsal fin clearly exposed above; what havoc such a carnivorous fish would be likely to effect in a “pod” of young fur-seals, can be better imagined than described t+ Orca gladiator. While revolving this particular line of inquiry in my mind when, on the ground and-among the seals, I involuntarily looked constantly for some sign of disturbance in the sea which would indicate the presence of an enemy; and, save seeing a few examples of the Orca, I never detected anything; if the killer-whale was common here, it would be patent to the most casual eye, because it is the habit of this ferocious cetacean to swim so closely at the surface as to show its peculiar sharp, dorsal fin high above the water; possibly a very superficial observer could and would confound the long, trenchant fluke of the Orca with the stubby node upon the spine of the humpback whale, which that animal exhibits only when it is about to dive. Humpbacks feed around the islands, but not commonly—they are the exception; they do not, however, molest the seals in any manner whatever; and little squads of these pinnipeds seem to delight themselves by swimming in endless circles around and under the huge bodies of those whales, frequently leaping out and entirely over the cetacean’s back, as witnessed on one occasion by myself and the crew of the ‘‘ Reliance”, off the coast of Kadiak, June, 1874. {When regarding the subject in 1872~73, of how many surplus young males could be wisely taken from the Pribylov stock, I satisfied myself that more than 100,000 could be drawn upon annually for their skins, and hence was impressed with the idea that the business might be safely developed to a greater maximum; since then, however, I have been giving attention to the other side of the question, which involves the:market for the skins and the practical working of any sliding scale of increased killing, such as I then recommended. A careful review of the whole matter modifies my original idea and causes me to think that, all things considered, it is better to “let well enough alone”. Although it would be a most interesting commercial experiment to develop the yield of the Pribylov islands to their full capacity, yet, in view of the anomalous and curious features of the case, it is wiser to be satisfied with the assnred guarantee of perpetuation in all original integrity, which the experience of the last ten years gives us on the present basis of 100,000, than to risk it by possibly doubling the revenue therefrom. Therefore, I am not now in favor of my earlier proposition of gradually increasing the killing, until the maximum number of surplus “holluschickie” should be ascertained. 64 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. not contain them long when they depart from the breeding-rookeries and the hauling-grounds therein. While it is carried in mind that they sleep and rest in the water with soundness and with the greatest comfort on its surface, and that even when around the land, during the summer, they frequently put off from the beaches to take a bath and a quiet snooze just beyond the surf, we can readily agree that it is no inconvenience whatever, when the reproductive functions have been discharged, and their coats renewed, for them to stay the balance of the time in their most congenial element—the briny deep. NATURAL ENEMIES OF THE FUR-SEALS.—That these animals are preyed upon extensively by killer-whales (Orca gladiator), in especial, and by sharks, and probably other submarine foes now unknown, is at once evident; for, were they not held in check by some such cause, they would, as they exist to-day on St. Paul, quickly multiply, by arithmetical progression, to so great an extent that the island, nay, Bering sea itself, could not contain them. The present annual killing of 100,000 out of a yearly total of over a million males does not, in an appreciable degree, diminish the seal-life, or interfere in the slightest with its regular, sure perpetuation on the breeding-grounds every year. We may, therefore, properly look upon this aggregate of four and five millions of fur-seals, a8 we see them every season on these Pribylov islands, as the maximum limit of increase assigned to them by natural law. The great equilibrium, which nature holds in life upon this earth, must be sustained at St. Paul as well as elsewhere. FooD CONSUMED BY THE FUR-SEALS.—Think of the enormous food-consumption of these rookeries and hauling-grounds; what an immense quantity of finny prey must pass down their voracious throats as every year rolls by. A creature so full of life, strung with nerves, muscles like bands of steel, cannot live on air, or absorb it from the sea. Their food is fish, to the practical exclusion of all other diet. I have never seen them touch, or disturb with the intention of touching it, one solitary example in the flocks of water-fowl which rest upon the surface of the water all about the islands. I was especially careful in noting this, because it seemed to me that the canine armature of their mouths must suggest flesh for food at times as well as fish; but fish we know they eat. Whole windrows of the heads of cod and wolf fishes,* bitten off by these animals at the nape, were washed up on the south shore of St. George during a gale in the summer of 1873; this pelagic decapitation evidently marked the progress and the appetite of a band of fur-seals to the windward of the island, as they passed into and through a stray school of these’ fishes. How many pounds per diem is required by an adult seal, and en by it when feeding, is not certain in my mind. Judging from the appetite, however, of kindred animals, such as sea-lions fed in pees at Woodward’s gardens, San Francisco, I can safely say that forty pounds for a full-grown fur-seal is a fair allowance, with at least ten or twelve pounds per diem to every adult female, and not much less, if any, to the rapidly growing pups and young “holluschickie”. Therefore, this great body of four and five millions of hearty, active animals which we know on the seal-islands, must consume an enormous amount of such food every year. They cannot average less than ten pounds of fish each per diem, which gives the consumption, as exhibited by their appetite, of over six million tons of fish every year. What wonder, then, that nature should do something to hold these active fishermen in eheck.t * Anarrhichas sp. tI feel confident that I have placed this average of fish eaten per diem by each seal at a starvation allowance, or, in other words, it is a certain minimum of the whole consumption. If the seals can get double the quantity which I credit them with above, startling as it seems, still I firmly believe that they eat it every year. An adequate realization by icthyologists and fishermen as to what havoc the fur- seal hosts are annually making among the cod, herring, and salmon of the northwest coast and Alaska, would disconcert and astonish them. Happily for the peace of political economists who may turn their attention to the settlement and growth of the Pacific coast of America, it bids fair to never be known with anything like precision. The fishing of man, both aboriginal and civilized, in the past, present, and prospective, has neyer been, is not, nor will it be, more than a drop in the bucket contrasted with the piscatorial labors of these i¢thyophagi in those waters adjacent to their birth. What catholic knowledge of fish and fishing banks any one of those old “seecatchie” must possess, which we observe hauled out on the Pribylov rookeries each summer. It has, undoubtedly, during the eighteen or twenty years of its life, explored every fish eddy, bank, or shoal throughout the whole of that vast immensity of the North Pacific and Bering sea. It has had more piscine sport in a single twelve month than Izaak Walton had in his whole life. An old sea-captain, Dampier, cruising around the world just about 200 years ago, wrote diligently thereof (or, rather, one Funnel is said to have written for him), and wrote well. He had frequent reference to meeting hair-seals and sea-lions, fur-seals, etc., and fell into repeating this maxim, evidently of his own making: ‘‘ For wherever there be plenty of fysh, there be seals.” Iam sure that, unless a vast abundance of good fishing-ground was near by, no such congregation of seal-life as is that under discussion on the seal-islands, could exist. The whole eastern half of Bering sea, in its entirety, is a single fish-spawning bank, nowhere deeper than 50 to 75 fathoms, averaging, perhaps, 40; also, there are great reaches of fishing-shoals up and down the northwest coast, from and above the straits of Fuea, bordering the ennee southern, or Pacific, coast of the Aleutian islands. The aggregate of cod, herring, and salmon which the seals find upon these vast icthyological areas of reproduction, must be simply enormous, and fully equal to the most extravagant demand of the voracious appetites of Callorhini. When, however, the fish retire from spawning here, there, and everywhere over these shallows of Alaska and the northwest coast, along by the end of September to 1st of November, every year, I believe that the young fur-seal, in following them into the depths of the great Pacific, must have a really arduous struggle for existence—unless it knows of fishing banks unknown to us. The yearlings, however, and all above that age, are endowed with sufficient muscular energy to dive rapidly in deep soundings, and to fish with undoubted success. The pup, however, when it goes to sea, five or six months old, is not lithe and sinewy like the yearling; it is podgy and fat, a comparative elumsy swimmer, and does not develop, I believe, into a good fisherman until it has become pretty well starved after leaving the Pribylovs. ‘puno13 e[pprut oy} TO yysts ayi Ol SUNT Yea oF pue ‘g0UE\SIp ay} Ur [Ne IG FO ase[[IA oq, a Fee ii My j A i Ai = Tr - aT = ———— Yi atl Ni ANS Ii | rs WS ANN HH Ze \ | NN a om Tip » MY EIS OG 2 : eg EG y re a nv) We - SS ETE EE = pet : oF xs = = ee Z_~ ZEEE Se ee eg O—7_7Z ZZ a Pe a —_— = = < — ae a a = 5 = =. aaa - oe == EE rey See ee mee Se SS eee EE Se == ee ee es ss a Ea ae Re ee LAA ER a eng ee ae ee Ie ae a ee ee aR ’ = ee ee ee eee: : Ee ee Ce Wor ieee Z Vac » ) EE = e =a a = ef es —— = ( aN rs (( XN ) SG) Caer SS aa — a eo (CMO aes ee ee Be es ee ee eee ee BAe EE = me 2 Be ress poe eee Se eens ‘SAN V1ISI-TVaS—UdeubouoWn ‘TIX 978Id THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 67 SITES OF ABANDONED ROOKERIES.—With reference to the amount of ground covered by the seals, when first discovered by the Russians, I have examined every foot of the shore line of both islands where the bones, and polished rocks, ete., might be lying on any deserted areas. Since then, after carefully surveying the new ground now occupied by the seals, and comparing this area with that which they have deserted, 1 feel justified in stating that for the last twelve or fifteen years, at least, the fur-seals on these islands have not diminished, nor have they increased as a body to any noteworthy degree; and throughout this time the breeding-grounds have not been disturbed exeept at that brief but tumultuous interregnum during 1868; and they have been living since in a perfectly quiet and natural condition. : CAN THE NUMBER BE INCREASED ?—What can be done to promote their increase? We cannot cause a greater number of females to be born every year than are born now; we do not touch or disturb these females as they grow up and live; and we never will, if the law and present management is continued. We save double—we save more than enough males to serve; nothing more can be done by human agency; it is beyond our power to protect them from their deadly marine enemies as they wander into the boundless ocean searching for food. In view, therefore, of all these facts, I have no hesitation in saying, quite confidently, that under the present rules and regulations governing the sealing interests on these islands, the increase or diminution of the seal-life thereon will amount to nothing in the future; that the seals will exist, as they do exist, in all time to come at about the same number and condition recorded in this monograph. To test this theory of mine, I here, in the record of my surveys of the rookeries, have put stakes down which will answer, upon those breeding-grounds, as a correct guide as to their present, as well as to their future, condition, from year to year. SURVEYING THE CONDITION OF THE ROOKERIES.—During the first week of inspection of some of those earliest arrivals, the “seecatchie”, which I have described, will frequently take to the water when approached; but these runaways quickly return. By the end of May, however, the same seals will hardly move to the right or left when you attempt to pass through them. Then, two weeks before the females begin to come in, and quickly after their arrival, the organization of the fur-seal rookery is rendered entirely indifferent to man’s presence on visits of quiet inspection, or to anything else, save their own kind, and so continues during the rest of the season. INDIFFERENCE OF FUR-SEALS 10 CARRION SMELLS, BLOOD, ETC.—I have called attention to the singular faet, that the breeding-seals upon the rookeries and hauling-grounds are not affected by the smell of blood or carrion arising from the killing-fields, or the stench of blubber fires which burn in the native villages. This trait is conclusively illustrated by the attitude of those two rookeries near the village of St. Paul; for the breeding-ground on this spit, at the head of the lagoon, is not more than forty yards from the great killing-grounds to the eastward; being separated from those spots of slaughter, and the seventy or eighty thousand rotting carcasses thereon, by a slough not more than ten yards wide. These seals can smell the blood and carcasses, upon this field, from the time they land in the spring until they leave in the autumn; while the general southerly winds waft to them the odor and sounds of the village of St. Paul, not over 200 rods south of them, and above them, in plain sight. All this has no effect upon the seals—they know that they are not disturbed—and the rookery, the natives declare, has been slightly but steadily increasing. Therefore, with regard to surveying and taking those boundaries assumed by the breeding-seals every year, at that point of high tide, and greatest expansion, which they assume between the Sth and 15th of July, it is an entirely practicable and simple task. You can go everywhere on the skirts of the rookeries almost within reaching distance, and they will greet you with quiet, inoffensive notice, and permit close, unbroken observation, when it is subdued and undemonstrative, paying very little attention to your approach. YEARLY CHANGES IN THE ROOKERIES.—I believe the agents of the government there, are going to notice, every year, little changes here and there in the area and distribution of the rookeries; for instance, one of these breeding-grounds will not be quite as large this year as it was last, while another one, opposite, will be found somewhat larger and expanded over the record which it made last season. In 1874, it was my pleasure and my profit to re-traverse all these rookeries of St. George and St. Paul, with my field notes of 1872 in my hand, making careful comparisons of their relative size as recorded then, and now. To show this peculiarity of enlarging a little here, and diminishing a little there, so characteristic of the breeding-grounds, I reproduce the following memoranda of 1874: NORTHEAST POINT, July 18, 1874. CONTRAST ON ST. PAUL BETWEEN 1872 AND 1874.—Quite a strip of ground near Webster’s house has been deserted this season; but a small expansion is observed on Hutchinson’s hill. The rest of the ground is as mapped in 1872, with no noteworthy increase in any direction. The condition of the animals and their young, excellent; small irregularities in the massing of the families, due to the heavy tain this morning ; sea-lions about the same; none, however, on the west shore of the point. The aggregate of life on this great rookery is, therefore, about the same as in 1872; the ‘‘holluschickie”, or killable seals, hauling: as well and as numerously as before. The proportions of the different ages among them of two, three, and four-year-olds, pretty well represented. PoLavina, July 18, 1874. Stands as it did in 1872; breeding- and hauling-grounds in excellent condition; the latter, on Polavina, are changing from the uplands down upon Polayina sand beach, trending for three miles toward northeast point. The numbers of the “‘holluschickie” on this ground of Polavina, where they have not been disturbed for some five years, to mention, in the way of taking, do not seem to be any greater than they are on the hauling-grounds adjacent to Northeast point and the village, from which they are driven almost every das 68 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. during this season of killing. I notice also this remarkable characteristic of the ‘““holluschickie”; no matter now cleanly the natives may drive the seals off of a given piece of hauling-ground this morning, if the weather is favorable, to-morrow will see it covered again just as thickly; and, thus they drive in this manner from Zoltoi sands almost every day during the killing-season, generally finding on the succeeding morning more, or a8 many, seals as they drove off the previous dawn. This seems to indicate that the “holluschickie” recognize no particular point as favored over another at the island when they land, which is evidently in obedience to a general desire of coming ashore at such a suitable place as promises no crowding and no fighting. LUKANNON AND KeEravir, July 19, 1874. Not materially changed in any respect from its condition at this time in 1872. GorBorcH, July 19, 1874. Just the same. Condition excellent. REEF, July 19, 1874. A slight contraction on the south sea-margin of this ground; compensated for by fresh expansion under the bluffs on the northwest side; not noteworthy in either instance. Condition excellent. Naw SPEEL, July 20, 1874. A diminution of one-half at least. Very few here this year. It is no place for a rookery; not a pistol-shot from the natives’ houses, and all the natives’ children fooling over the blufis. LaGoon, July 20, 1874. No noteworthy change; if any, a trifling increase. Condition good. Animals clean and lively. Toustol1, July 21, 1874, No perceptible change in this rookery from its good shape of 1872. The condition excellent. ZAPADNIE, July 22, 1874. A remarkable extension or increase I note here, of 2,000 feet of shore line, with an average depth of 50 feet of breeding-ground, which has been built on to Upper Zapadnie, stretching out toward Tolstoi; the upper rookery proper has not altered its bearings or proportions; the sand beach belt between it and Lower Zapadnie is not occupied by breeding- seals; and a fair track for the “holluschickie”, 500 feet wide, left clear, over which they have traveled quite extensively this season, some 20,000 to 25,000 of them, at least, lying out around the old salt-house to-day. Lower Zapadnie has lost in a noteworthy degree about an average of 20 feet of its general depth, which, however, is more than compensated for by the swarming on the upper rookery. A small beginning had been made for a rookery on the shore just southwest from Zapadnie lake, in 1872, but this year it has been substantially abandoned. CONTRAST ON ST. GEORGE BETWEEN 1873 AND 1874.—An epitomé of my notes for St. George, gives, as to this season of 1874, the following data for comparison with that of 1873: ZAPADNIE, July 8, 1874. This rookery shows a slight increase upon the figures of last year, about 5,000. Fine condition. STaRRY ATEEL, July 6, 1874. No noteworthy change from last year. NortH Rookery, July 6, 1874. No essential change from last year. Condition very good. LitTLe EASTERN, July 6, 1874. A slight diminution of some 2,000 or so. Condition excellent. EASTERN ROOKERY, July 7, 1874, A small increase over last year of about 3,000, only trifling, however; the aggregate seal-life here similar to that of last season, with the certainty of at least a small increase. The unusually early season, this year, brougat the rookery ‘‘seecatchie” on the ground very much in advance of the general time; they landed as early as the 10th of April, while the arrival of the cows was as late as usual, corresponding to my observations during the past seasons. The general condition of the animals of all classes on St. George is most excellent—they are sleek, fat, and free from any disease. In this way it is plain that, practically, the exact condition of these animals can be noted every season; and, should a diminution be observed, due to any cause, known or unknown, the killing can be promptly eneren or stopped, to any required quota. Ten years have passed, with the end of last season, in which nearly 100,000 young males have been annually taken on St. Paul and St. George; 75,000 from the former, and 25,000 from the latter, as a rule; and we now have the experience with which to enlighten our understanding, and to make our statement correct. That affirmation is, that if the effect of annually killing 100,000 young male seals is either to increase or to diminish the seal-life on the Pribylov islands, it cannot be noticed; it has not to a certainty wrought injury, and it has not promoted an increase. I advanced this hypothesis in 1873; and I now find it completely verified and confirmed by the united, intelligent testimony of those who have followed on the ground in my footsteps. PECUNIARY VALUE OF THE SEAL-LIFE ON THE PRIBYLOV ISLANDS.—The theoretical value of these interests of the government on the Pribylov islands, represented by 2,500,000 to 3,000,000 fur-seals, male and female, in good condition, is not less than $10,000,000 or $12,000,000; taking, however, the females out of the question, and from this calculation, and looking at the “ holluschickie” alone, as they really represent the only killable seals, then the commercial value of the same would be expressed' by the sum of $1,800,000 to $2,000,000; this is a permanent principal invested here, which now nets the public treasury more than 15 per cent. ponte lke : @ very handsome rate of interest, surely. STRANGE IGNORANCE OF THEIR VALUE IN 1867.—Considering that this return is the only one made to the government by Alaska, since its transfer, and that it was never taken into account, at first, by the most ardent THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 69 advocates of the purchase of Russian-America, it is in itself highly creditable and interesting; to Senator Sumner the friends of the acquisition of this territory in 1867, delegated the task of making the principal argument in its favor. Everything that was written in strange tongues was carefully translated for the choice bits of mention which could be found of Alaska’s value. Hence his speech* on the subject possesses this interest: it is the embodiment of everything that could be scraped together, having the faintest shadow of authenticity, by all of the eager friends of the purchase, which gave the least idea of any valuable natural resources in Alaska; therefore, when, in summing all this up, he makes no reference whatever to the seal-islands, or the fur-seal itself, the extraordinary ignorance at home and abroad relative to the Pribylov islands can be well appreciated. THOUGHTS UPON THE POSSIBLE MOVEMENTS OF THE FUR-SEALS IN THE FUTURE.—As these animals live and breed upon the Pribyloy islands, the foregoing studies of their habit declare certain natural conditions of landing- ground and climate to be necessary for their existence and perpetuation. From my surveys made upon the islands to the north, St. Matthéw and St. Lawrence, together with the scientific and corroborating testimony of those who have visited all of the mainland coast of Alaska, and the islands contiguous, including the peninsula and the great Aleutian archipelago, I have no hesitation in stating that the fur-seal cannot breed, or rest for t] at matter, on any other land than that now resorted to, which lies within our boundary lines; the natural obstacle; are insuperable. Therefore, so far as our possessions extend, we have, in the Pribylov group, the only eligible land to which the fur- seal can repair for breeding; and on which, at St. Paul island alone, there is still room enough of unoccupied rookery-ground for the accommodation of twice as many seals as we find there to-day. But we must not forget a very important prospect; for, we know that to the westward, only 700 miles, and withi. the jurisdiction or itussia,. are two other seal-islands—one very large, on which the fur-seal regularly breeds also; « id though from the meager testimony in my possession, compared with St. Paul, the fur-seal life upon them is small, still, if that land within the pale of the czar’s dominion be as suitable for the reception of the rookeries: s is that of St. Paul, thet what guarantee have we that the seal-life on Copper and Bering islands, at some future time, may not be greatly augmented by a corresponding diminution of our own, with no other than natural causes operating? Certainly, if the ground on either Bering or Copper island, in the Commander group, is as well suited for the wants of the breeding fur-seal as is that exhibited by the Pribylov islands, then I say confidently that we may at any time note a diminution here and find a corresponding augmentation there; for ] have clearly shown, in my chapter on the habits of these animals, that they are not so particularly attached to the respective places of their birth, but that they rather land with an instinctive appreciation of the fitness of that ground as a whole. ; NEED OF MORE DEFINITE KNOWLEDGE CONCERNING THE RUSSIAN SEAL-ISLANDS.—If we, however, possess ali the best suited ground, then we can count upon retaining the seal-life as we now have it, by a vast majority, and, im no other way; for it is not unlikely that some season may occur when an immense number of the fur-seals, which have lived during the last four or five years on the Pribylov islands, should be deflected from their usual feeding- range at sea by the shifting of schools of fish, and other abnormal causes, which would bring them around quite close to the Asiatic seal-grounds, in the spring; and the scent from those rookeries would act as a powerful stimulant and attraction for them to land there, where the conditions for their breeding may be just as favorable as they desire. Suci being the case, this diminution, therefore, which we would notice on the Pribyloy group, might be the great increase observed at the Commander islands, and not due to any mismanagement on the part of the men in charge of these interests. Thus, it appears to me necessary that definite knowledge concerning the Commander islands and the Kuriles should be gathered. If we find, however, that the character of this Russian seal land is restricted to narrow beach-margins, under bluffs, as at St. George, then we shall know that a great body of seals will never attempt to land there when they could not do so without suffering, and in violation of their laws, during the breeding-season. Therefore, with this correct understanding to start on, we can then feel alarmed with good reason, should we ever observe any diminution, to a noteworthy degree, on our seal-islands of Bering sea. POSSIBLE DEFLECTION OF SEALS IN FEEDING.—1 do not call attention to this subject with the slightest idea in my mind, as I write, of any such contingency arising, even for an indefinite time to come; but still I am sensible - of the fact that it is possible for it to oceur any season. But the seals undoubtedly feed on their pelagic fields in systematic routine of travel, from the time they leave the Pribylov islands until that of their return; therefore, in all probability, unless the fish upon which they are nourished suddenly become scarce in our waters and soundings, the seals will not change their base, as matters now progress; but it is possible for the finny shoals and schools to be so deflected from their migration to and from their spawning-beds, as to carry this seal-life with it, as I have hinted above. Thus it cannot be superfluous to call up this question, so that it shall be prominent in discussion, and suggestion for future thought. NEED OF CAREFUL YEARLY EXAMINATION.—In the meantime the movements of the seals upon the great breeding-rookeries of St. Paul and those of St. George should be faithfully noted and recorded every year; and as time goes on this record will place the topic of their increase or diminution beyond all theory or cavil. * Speech on cession of Russian-America, U.S. Senate, 1867; ‘‘ Summary,” p. 48. 70 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 12. MANNER OF TAKING THE SEALS. EXHIBIT OF ALL SKINS SHIPPED FROM THE PRIBYLOV ISLANDS.—As an exhibit of the entire number of fur-seal skins taken for taxes and sale from the Pribylovy islands, between 1797 and 1880, inclusive, I present the following table, which, although it may vary from the true aggregate, during the long period of nearly one hundred years covered by it, I am nevertheless satisfied it is the best evidence of the kind which can be obtained. Prior to the year 1868 it will be noticed that I have given only a series of estimates for the period antedating that year, as far back as 1862. The reason for this is that I can find nowhere, in writing, an authenticated record of the catch. It was the policy of the old Russian company invariably to take more skins, every year, from these islands down to Sitka than they could profitably dispose of annually in the markets of the world; a large surplus being yearly left over, which were suffered to decay or be destroyed by moths, and subsequently thrown into the sea. I can only judge, therefore, of what they took in that period, from what I know they had on hand in their salt-house at St. George and St. Paul during 1867, which was 40,000 to 48,000 skins; and this the natives told me was a larger average than they had taken for a great many years prior to that date. Hence, I have proportioned it back to the last record, which | find in Techmainov, whose figures, embraced in the three periods, from 1796 to 1861, have been g\ven as copied by him from the authentic archives of the old Russian company; he is careful to say, in this €ounection, that the exhibit does not show all skins that were taken from the seal-islands, but only those which the Russians took for sale from Sitka. And, again, other Russian authors, rather than this historian of the Russian American Company, have said that immense numbers of fur-seal skins—hundreds of thousands—were frequently accumulated in the warehouses at Sitka only to decay an: be destroyed. Their aggregate cannot be estimated within any bound of accuracy, and it is not in the sum total .f the following table. What we have taken on the island, since 1868, is presented below, almost correct. In the appendix, where I give a short digest of Professor Nordenskiéld’s visit to Bering island, will be found another table showing the number of skins taken from those Russian Commander islands. In the following table, relative to the Pribylov group, it will be noticed that there is a gap of ten years, between 1786, the date of their discovery, and 1805, the time of the earliest Russian record. How many were taken then, there is not the faintest evidence in black and white; but we do know that from the time of the discovery of the Pribylov islands up to 1799, the taking of fur-seals on both of these islands progressed without count or lists, and without any responsible head or director; because there were then, upon those islands, seven or eight different companies, represented by as many agents or leaders, and all of them vied one with the other in taking as many fur-seals as they could :* 3 Tur-seal skins taken from the Prybilov islands for shipment and sale. > | Period. picuiber ct Period. Pace Period. Romper ok Period. Numben age * 1797-1821 (24 years). -.-.. W282). 874 | (1864 oe ve ee cnt a ¥26,000)|| MSO se caee semester ae Sythe | LO 0 Sealers 99, 000 * 1821-1842 (21 years). --- Bos O 02h lel Oboe cee mie emets eles VA0 5000) |PUSTdeer ee nmee eee se 63, 000 |) 1877..--....--...-.-.2-.2. 83, 500 * 1842-1861 (19 years) .---- 872, 000 || 1866 ........-..-....----- PAZ 1000) | MAST eee ese ares ee 99,000 || 1878. --..- =e 95, 000 UWP esa ceisaae sotece sececs HPABOIW AN TEL (ee See nem 748, 000 || 1873.........-...-........ 99; 630 || 1879. --. .- 99, 968 MOB) = 2 Shsseieocansetiscoss eA (00) ||| ES Gasresbboaosskoeesan 242,000 |) 1874............ Soot scscbe Giberd) | Ghee ae eno soeideceencose 99, 950 WW noes scossssececeodtes 87, 000 | UY Gs soescbossbensteusscen 99, 500 | Total, 1797 to 1880 .- pia 561, 051 | *TIncluding about 5,000 annually from the Commander islands. LHE MANNER IN WHICH THE SEALS ARE TAKEN.—By reference to the habit of the fur-seal, which I have discussed at length, it is now plain and beyond doubt, that two-thirds of all the males which are born, and they are equal in numbers to the females born, are never permitted by the remaining third, strongest by natural selection, to land upon the same breeding-ground with the females, which always herd thereupon en masse. Hence, this great band of “bachelor” seals, or “holluschickie”, so fitly termed, when it visits the island is obliged to live apait entirely—sometimes, and some places, miles away from the rookeries; and, in this admirably perfect method of nature are those seals which can be properly killed without injury to the rookeries, selected and held aside by their own volition, so that the natives can visit and take them without disturbing, in the least degree, the entire quiet uf the breeding-grounds, where the stock is perpetuated. The manner in which the natives capture and drive the “holluschickie” up from the hauling-grounds to the slaughter-fields near the two villages of St. Paul and St. George, and elsewhere on the islands, cannot be improved “The attempt, on my part, fo get an authentic list of the numbers of fur-seals slain upon the Pribyloy islands, prior to 1868, has simply been, to my mind, a partial failure. My investigation and search for such record, has satisfied me that it does not exist; memoranda of shipments only, each season, were made by the agents of the Russian company when the vessels took those skins from the seal islands to Sitka; and of these skins again, count was only made of such as were exported to China or Russia, no mention being made , anywhere of the number which was consumed in Alaska by the company’s large force of attachés, or else destroyed at New Archangel. This method of accounting for the yield from the Pribylovs from 1806 or 1817 up to 1867, naturally confuses a correct determination as te the sum total—renders it, perhaps, very inaccurate. This explanation is, at least, due to the reader. f "'eigT ‘br Apne ‘Asoqo0uy Surpsorg uoose'T pue 9A09 aFeI[IA ay] 1940°M "S'S Suryoory *puels] ned 3S Iq eberiA o4uy depun ‘spunoub-bul[[Iy eu} OF SPes ucofeyT ey} JoAO Hurissed sAOdp euL HLMOIHOSATIOH» AHL ONIATAG SHAILVN as Syn j Ne be Tg i LN ROE Ses WAwewrDN 4 Y Wh Ge q A fyi) 10 2 MAA AA i? ae Z Yc He) Bett RUZ NR yen Minaninnnne oo Ml Ff Vay Ong of ma : Bees \ BSR Ae esen one, ie Ji. id é Sen WY) (fs : SCANS abana Raa i eee an yi vty a Avia: eases Noort ‘Dy ee 8 SE pe ee be ; * espera” =F x areca Sate Se SoS ee Sa aT a Bk RROD roe a ae = oe en incgaregis IPO = ‘SGNVISI-Tvas—udesboucw TILX 938Id THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 71 upon. It is in this way: at the beginning of every sealing-season, that is, during May and June, large bodies of the young “bachelor” seals do not haul up on land very far from the water—a few rods at the most—and, when these first arrivals are sought after, the natives, in capturing them, are obliged to approach slyly and run quickly between the dozing seals and the surf, before they can take alarm and bolt into the sea; in this manner a dozen Aleuts, running down the sand beach of English bay, in the early morning of some June day, will turn back from the water thousands of seals, just as the mold-board of a plow lays over and back a furrow of earth. When the sleeping seals are first startled, they arise, and, seeing men between them and the water, immediately turn, lope, and scramble rapidly back up and over the land; the natives then leisurely walk on the flanks and in the rear of the drove thus secured, directing and driving it over to the killing-grounds, close by the village.* PROGRESSION OF A SEAL-DRIVE.—A drove of seals on hard or firm grassy ground, in cool and moist weather, may be driven with safety at the rate of half a mile an hour; they can be urged along, with the expenditure of a great many lives, however, at the speed of a mile or a mile and a quarter per hour; but this is seldom done. An old bull seal, fat and unwieldy, cannot travel with the younger ones, though it can lope or gallop as it starts across the ground as fast as an ordinary man can run, over 100 yards; but then it fails utterly, falls to the earth supine, entirely exhausted, hot, and gasping for breath. The “holluschickie” are urged along over the path leading to the killing-grounds with very little trouble, and require only three or four men to guide and secure as many thousand at atime. They are permitted frequently to halt and cool off, as heating them injures their fur. These seal-halts on the road always impressed me with a species of sentimentalism and regard for the creatures themselves. The men dropping back for a few moments, the awkward shambling and scuffling of the march at once ceases, and the seals stop in their tracks to fan themselves with their hind-flippers, while their heaving flanks give rise to subdued panting sounds. As soon as they apparently cease to gasp for want of breath, and are cooled off comparatively, the natives step up once more, clatter a few bones with a shout along the line, and the seal-shamble begins again—their march to death and the markets of the world is taken up anew. . DociLiry OF FUR-SEALS WHEN DRIVEN.—I was also impressed by the singular docility and amiability of these animals when driven along the road; they never show fight any more than a flock of sheep would do; if, however, a few old seals get mixed in, they usually get so weary that they prefer to come to a stand-still and fight rather than move; otherwise no sign whatever of resistance is made by the drove from the moment it is intercepted, and turned up from the hauling-grounds, to the time of its destruction at the hands of the sealing-gang. This disposition of the old seals to fight rather than endure the panting torture of travel, is of great advantage to all parties concerned; for they are worthless commercially, and the natives are only too glad to let them drop behind, where they remain unmolested, eventually returning to the sea. The fur on them is of little or no value; their under wool being very much shorter, coarser, and more scant than in the younger; especially so on the posterior parts along the median line of the back. CHANGE IN PELAGE.—This change for the worse or deterioration of the pelage of the fur-seal takes place, as a rule, in the fifth year of their age; it is thickest and finest in texture during the third and fourth year of life; hence, in driving the seals on St. Paul and St. George up from the hauling-grounds the natives make, as far as practicable, a selection from males of that age. *The task of getting up early in the morning, and going out to the several hauling-grounds, closely adjacent, is really all there is ’ of the labor involved in securing the number of seals required for the day’s work on the killing-grounds. The two, three, or four natives upon whom, in rotation, this duty is devolved by the order of their chief, rise at first glimpse of dawn, between 1 and 2 o’clock, and hasten over to Lukannon, Tolstoi, or Zoltoi, as the case may be, ‘‘ walk out” their “‘holluschickie”, and have them duly on the slaughtering-field before 6 or 7 o'clock, as arule, in the morning. In favorable weather the ‘‘drive” from Tolstoi consumes two and a half to three hours’ time; from Lukannon, about two hours, and is often done in an hour and a half; while Zoltoi is so near by that the time is m»rely nominal. Theard a great deal of talk among the white residents of St. Paul, when I first landed and the sealing-season opened, about the necessity of “resting” the hauling-grounds; in other words, they said that if the seals were driven in repeated daily rotation from any one of the hauling-grounds, that this would so disturb these animals as to prevent their coming to any extent again thereon, during the rest of the season. This theory seemed rational enough to me at the beginning of my investigations, and I was not disposed to question its accuracy; but, subsequent observation directed to this point particularly, satisfied me, and the sealers themselves with whom I was associated, that the driving of the seals had no effect whatever upon the hauling which took place soon or immediately after the field, for the hour, had been swept clean of seals by the drivers. If the weather was favorable for landing, i. e., cool, moist, and foggy, the fresh hauling of the “‘holluschickie” would cover the bare grounds again in a very short space of time—sometimes in a few hours after the driving of every seal from Zoltoi sands over to the killing-fields adjacent, those dunes and the beach in question would be swarming anew with fresh arrivals. If, however, the weather is abnormally warm and sunny, during its prevalence, even if for several consecutive days, no seals to speak of will haul out on the emptied space; indeed, if these ‘‘holluschickie” had not been taken away by man from Zoltoi or any other hauling-ground on the islands when ‘“tayopli” weather prevailed, most of those seals would have vacated their terrestrial loafing places for the cooler embraces of the sea. x The importance of clearly understanding this fact as to the readiness of the ‘‘holluschickie” to haul promptly out en steadily “swept” ground, provided the weather is inviting, is very great; because, when not understood, it was deemed necessary, even as late as the season of 1872, to “rest” the hauling-grounds near the village (from which all the driving has been made since), and make trips to far away Polayina and distant Zapadnie—an unnecessary expenditure of human time, and a causeless infliction of physical misery upon phocine backs and flippers. 72 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. ‘It is quite impossible, however, to get them all of one age without an extraordinary amount of stir and bustle, which the Aleuts do not like to precipitate; hence the drive will be found to consist usually of a bare majority of three and four-year-olds, the rest being two-year-olds principally, and a very few, at wide intervals, five-year-olds, the yearlings seldom ever getting mixed up. METHOD OF LAND TRAVEL.—AsS the drove progresses along the path to the slaughtering grounds, the seals all move in about the same way; they go ahead with a kind of walking step and a sliding, shambling gallop. ‘The progression of the whole caravan is a succession of starts, spasmodic and irregular, made every few minutes, the seals pausing to catch their breath, and make, as it were, a plaintive survey and mute protest. Every now and then a seal will get weak in the lumbar region, then drag its posteriors along for a short distance, finally drop breathless and exhausted, quivering and panting, not to revive for hours—days, perhaps—and often never. During the driest driving-days, or those days when the temperature does not combine with wet fog to keep the path moist and cool, quite a large number of the weakest- animals in the drove will be thus laid out and left on the track. If one of these prostrate seals is not too much heated at the time, the native driver usually taps the beast over the head and removes its skin.* PROSTRATION OF FUR-SEALS BY HEAT.—This prostration from exertion will always happen, no matter how carefully they are driven; and in the longer drives, such as two and a half, and five miles from Zapadnie on the west, or Polavina on the north, to the village at St. Paul, as much as three or four per cent. of the whole drive will be thus dropped on the road; hence I feel satisfied, from my observation and close attention to this feature, that a considerable number of those that are thus rejected from the drove, and are able to rally and return to the water, die subsequently from internal injuries sustained on the trip, superinduced by this over-exertion. I, therefore, think it highly improper and impolitie to extend drives of the ‘‘holluschickie” over any distance on St. Paul island exceeding a mile, or a mile and a half; it is better for all parties concerned, and the business too, that salt-houses be erected, and killing-grounds established contiguous and to all of the great hauling-grounds, two miles distant from the village on St. Paul island, should the business ever be developed above the present limit; or should the exigencies of the future require a quota from all these places, in order to make up the 100,000 which may be lawfully taken. ABUNDANT SUPPLY OF “HOLLUSCHICKIE”.—As matters are to-day, 100,000 seals alone on St. Paul can be taken and skinned in less than forty working days, within a radius of one mile and a half from the village, and from the salt-house at Northeast point; hence the driving, with the exception of two experimental droves which I witnessed in 1872, has never been made from longer distances than Tolstoi to the eastward, Lukannon to the northward, and Zoltoi to the southward of the killing-grounds at St. Paul village. Should, however, an abnormal season recur, in which the larger proportion of days during the right period for taking the skins be warmish and dry, it might be necessary, in order to get even 75,000 seals within the twenty-eight or thirty days of their prime condition, for drives to be made from the other great hauling-erounds to the westward and northward, which are now, and have been for the last ten years, entirely unnoticed by the sealers. FALLING THE SEALS.—The seals, when finally driven up on those flats between the east landing and the villas c, and almost under the windows of the dwellings, are herded there until cool and rested. The drives are usua:ly made very early in the morning, at the first breaking of day, which is half-past one to two o’clock of June and July in these latitudes. They arrive, and cool off on the slaughtering-grounds, so that by six or seven o’clock, after breakfast, the able-bodied male population turn out from the village and go down to engage in the work of slaughter. The men are dressed in their ordinary working-garb of thick flannel shirts, stout cassimere or canvas pants, over which the “tarbossa” boots are drawn; if it rains they wear their ‘“kamlaikas”, made of the intestines and throats of the sea-lion and fur-seal. Thus dressed, they are each armed with a club, a stout oaken or hickory bludgeon, which have been made particularly for the purpose at New London, Connecticut, and imported here for this especial service. These sealing clubs are about five or six feet in length, three inches in diameter at their heads, and the thickness of a man’s forearm where they are grasped by the hands. Each native also has his stabbing- knife, his skinning-knife, and his whetstone; these are laid upon the grass convenient, when the work of braining or knocking the seals down is in progress. This is all the apparatus which they have for killing and skinning. THE KILLING GANG AT WORK.—When the men gather for work they are under the control of their chosen foremen or chiefs; usually on St. Paul, divided into two working parties at the village, and a sub-party at Northeast point, where another salt-house and slaughtering-field is established. At the signal of the chief the work of the day begins by the men stepping into the drove, corraled on the flats; and, driving out from it 100 or *The fur-seal, like all of thepinnipeds, has no sweat-glands; hence, whenit is heated, it cools off by the same process of panting which is so characteristic of the dog, accompanied by the fanning that I have hitherto fully described; the heavy breathing and low grunting of a tired drove of seals, on a warmer day than usual, can be heard several hundred yards away. It is surprising how quickly the hair and fur will come out of the skin of a blood-heated seal—literally rubs bodily off at a touch of the finger. A fine specimen of a three-year-old “holluschak ” fell inits tracks at the head of the lagoon while being driven to the village killing-grounds. I asked that it be skinned with special reference to mounting; accordingly a native was sent for, who was on the spot, knife in hand, within less than 30 minutes from the moment that this seal fell in the road; yet, soon after he had got fairly to work, patches of the fur and hair came off here and there wherever he chanced to clutch the skin. “SUIUUTYS SOATIE NY «cpod,, @ UMmop Zutyoouy s1ajeag *puBls] [Ned WS ‘ebel[[IA 94} teeu ‘spunodh 94} UO sTees-dIny HursteyyHne[s JO pour MNOM LV DONVD-DNITIM AHL Sp U1, ae ly, “4 ——— Oy | Manian An “WY si PAN Rp sass AO Bs i SS “AN i) if, y TES, ‘ae Zz MVE A YUte, LYM Ay. : yyw Ayr I- ib at nahin an ly teeatyy g ‘SGNV1ISI-TVaS—uderbouci ‘SUTIEM Ul SAoIp oy], TTEN\ My y N / yin 1 Sehpainvoral ey Ma \) All Uh, Vy) iv tiv wy “AIX 08TH THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 73 150 seals at a time, make what they call a ‘“‘pod”, which they surround in a circle, huddling the seals one on another as they narrow it down, until they are directly within reach and under their clubs. Then the chief, after he has cast his experienced eye over the struggling, writhing “‘kautickie” in the center, passes the word that such and such a seal is bitten, that such and such a seal is too young, that such and such a seal is too old; the attention of his men being called to these points, he gives the word ‘‘strike”, and instantly the heavy clubs come down all around, and every one that is eligible is stretched out stunned and motionless, in less time, really, than I take to tell it. Those seals spared by order of the chief, now struggle from under and over the bodies of their insensible companions and pass, hustled off by the natives, back to the sea.* METHOD OF ALEUTS IN SKINNING. FUR-SEALS.—The clubs are dropped, the men seize the prostrate seals by the hind-flippers, and drag them out, so they are spread on the ground with- out touching each other; then every sealer takes his knife and drives it into the heart at a point between the fore-flippers of each stunned form; the blood gushes forth, and the quivering of the animal presently ceases. A single stroke of a heavy oak blud- geon, well and fairly delivered, will erush in at once the slight, thin bones of a fur-seal’s skull, and lay the crea- ture out almost lifeless. These blows are, however, usually repeated two or three times with each animal, but they are very quickly done. The bleeding, which is immediately effected, is so speedily undertaken in order that the strange reaction, which the sealers call “heating”, shall be delayed for half an hour or so, or until the seals can all be drawn out, and laid in some disposition for skinning. I have noticed that within less than thirty minutes from the time a perfectly sound seal was knocked down, it had so “heated”, owing to the day being warmer and drier than usual, that, when touching it with my foot, great patches of hair and fur scaled off. This is a rather excep- tionally rapid metamorphosis—it will, however, take place in every instance, within an hour, or an hour and a half on these warm days, after the first blow is struck, and the seal is quiet in death; hence no time is lost by the prudent chief in directing the removal of the skins as rapidly as the seals are knocked down and dragged out. If it is a cool day, after bleeding the first “pod” which has been prostrated in the manner described, and after carefully drawing the slain from the heap in which they have fallen, so that the bodies will spread over the ground just free from touching one another, they turn to and strike down another “pod”; and so on, until a whole thousand or two are laid out, or the drove, as corraled, is finished. The day, however, must be raw and cold for this wholesale method. Then, after killing, they turn to work, and skin; but, if it is a warm day, every pod is skinned as soon as it is knocked down. The labor of skinning is exceedingly severe; and is trying even to an expert, demanding long practice ere the muscles of the back and thighs are so developed as to permit a man to bend down to, and finish well, a fair day’s Mtl A % Sy sae The skin as taken therefrom. tity —— The flensed carcass of a fur-seal. *The aim and force with which the native directs his blow, determines the death of the seal; if struck direct and violently, a single stroke is enough; the seals’ heads are stricken so hard sometimes that those crystaline lenses to their eyes fly out from the orbital sockets like hail-stones, or little pebbles, and frequently struck me sharply in the face, or elsewhere, while I stood near by watching the killing-gang at work. A singular lurid green light suddenly suffuses the eye of the fur-seal at intervals when it is very much excited, as the ‘‘podding” for the clubbers is in progress ; and, at the moment when last raising its head it sees the uplifted bludgeons on every hand above, fear seems then for the first time to possess it and to instantly gild its eye in this strange manner.” When the seal is brained in this state of optical coloration, I have noticed that the opalescent tinting remained well defined for many hours or a whole day after death; these remarkable flashes are very characteristic to the eyes of the old males during their hurly-burly on the rookeries, but never appear in the younger classes unless as just described, as far as I could observe. he 2 74 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. work. The knives used by 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 fine comminuted 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-lknife, 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. BLUBBER OF FUR-SEAL: UNPLEASANT ODOR.—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, affect me more unpleasantly than did this strong, sickening sinell 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 middie 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 depth on the cervical and dorsal regions. As it “When turning the stunned and senseless carcasses, the only physical danger of which the sealers run the slightest risk, during the whole cirenit of their work, occurs thus: at this moment the prone and quivering body of the “‘holluschak” is not wholly inert, perhaps, thongh 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 and unconcernedly up into the surgeon’s office at the village, for bandages, etc.; afew 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 of 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, probably never will abandon those little whet-stones above referred to. During the Russian management, and throughout the strife in killing by our own people in 1868, a very large number of the skins were cut through, here and 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 always 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 “mocking 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 damage 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 control of its owner—at least I never could see it move to any appreciable degree, wher 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 Callorhinus 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 excresence, which many casual observers would not notice. The shrinking, twitching movements of the seal’s skin, here and 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 inconsequential; that of the walrus, even more so, while Phoca vitulina has one a trifle longer, relatively, and 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 have 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 fur-seal oyer that of the monkey’s skull as to weight with reterence to physical bulk; while their tails are as short or even shorter than most of the anthropyvid apes. | THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 75 descends on the limbs this blubber thins out very perceptibly; and, when reaching the flippers it almost entirely disappears, giving way to a glistening aureolar tissue, while the flipper skin finally descends in turn to adhere closely and firmly to the tendinous ligamentary structures beneath, which constitute the tips of the Pinnipedia. The flesh and the muscles are not lined between, or within, by fat of any kind. This blubber envelope contains it all with one exception—that which is found in the folds of the smallintestine and about the kidneys, where there is an abundant secretion of a harder, whiter, though still offensive, fat. FLESH OF FUR-SEAL AS AN ARTICLE OF DIbpT.—It is quite natural for our people, when they first eat a meal on the Pribylov islands, to ask questions in regard to what seal meat looks and tastes like; some of the white residents will answer, saying that they are very fond-of it, cooked so and so; others will reply that in no shape or manner can they stomach the dish. The inquirers must needs try the effect on their own palates. I frankly confess that I had a slight prejudice against seal meat at first, having preconceived ideas that it would be fishy in flavor, but I soon satisfied myself to the contrary, and found that the flesh of young seals, not over three years old, was full as appetizing and toothsome as most of the beef, mutton, and pork, I was accustomed to at home; the following precautions must be rigidly observed, however, by the cook who prepares fur-seal steaks and sausage balls for our delectation and subsistence—he will fail, if he does not: 1st. The meat must be perfectly cleaned of every vestige of blubber or fat, no matter how slight. 2d. Cut the flesh, then, into very thin steaks or slices, and soak them from six to twelve hours in salt and water (a tablespoon of fine salt to a quart of fresh water); this whitens the meat, and removes the residuum of dark venous blood that will otherwise give a slightly disagreeable taste, hardly definable, though existing. 3d. Fry these steaks, or stew them a la mode, with a few thin slices of sweet “breakfast” bacon, seasoning with pepper and salt; arich brown gravy follows the cooking of the meat; serve hot, and it is, strictly judged, a very excellent meal for the daintiest feeder—and I hereby recommend it confidently as a safe venture for any newcomer to make. ‘ MEAT OF THE SEA-LION.—The flesh of young sea-lions is still better than that of the fur-seal, while the natives say that the meat of the hair-seal (Phoca vitulina) is superior to both, being more juicy; fur-seal meat is exceedingly dry, hence the necessity of putting bacon into the frying-pan or stew-pot with it; sea-lion flesh is an improvement in this respect, and also that its fat, strange to say, is wholly clear, white, and inodorons, while the blubber of the ‘holluschickie” is sickening to the smell, and will, nine times out of ten, cause any civilized stomach to throw it up as quickly as it was swallowed. The natives, however, eat a great deal of it simply because they are too lazy to clean their fur-seal cuts, and not because they really relish it. In this connection it may be well to add, that the liver of both Callorhinus and Eumetopias is sweet and whole- some; or, in other words, it is as good as liver usually is in Fulton market; the tongues are small, white, and fat; they are regularly cut out to some extent, and salted in ordinary water-buckets for exportation to curious friends; they have but slight claim to gastronomic favor. The natives are, however, very partial to the liver; but, though they like the tongues, yet they are too lazy to prepare them. t aquatic submergence, by their great capacity toward the root of the heart, and by the enormous cava or hepatic reservoir. The widened aortic arch and the diminution of the abdominal aorta modify the blood-current, of which the vast muscular apparatus of the forequarters and the large brain must receive the major share of supply as it comes from the enlarged heart.* 13. MANNER OF CARING FOR AND SHIPPING THE FUR-SEAL SKINS. CURING THE RAW SKiNS.—The skins are taken from the field to the salt-house, where they are laid out, after being again carefully examined, one upon another, ‘hair to fat”, like so many sheets of paper, with salt profusely spread upon the fleshy sides as they are piled up in the “‘kenches”, or bins.t The salt-house is a large barn-like frame structure, so built as to afford one-third of its width in the center, from end to end, clear and open as a passage- way; while on each side are rows of stanchions, with sliding planks, which are taken down and put up in the form of deep bins, or boxes—“kenches,” the sealers call them. As the pile of skins is laid at the bottom of an empty “kench”, and salt thrown in on the outer edges, these planks are also put in place, so that the salt may be kept intact until the bin is filled as high up as a man can toss the skins. After lying two or three weeks in this style *I had prepared many notes upon the muscular anatomy of the fur-seal and the sea-lion; but I find that it has been anticipated so well by what Dr. Murie published in the transactions of the Zodlogical Society of London, 1869~72, as to render their reproduction here quite superfluous. These observations of Dr. Murie constitute one of the most valuable contributions to the knowledge of the anatomy of this animal that has ever been made. He carefully dissected a young male sea-lion after its death, which had been brought to the Zoological Society’s gardens from the Falkland islands. +The practice of curing in early times was quite different from this rapid and effective process of salting. The skins were then all air-dried; pegged out, when ‘“‘green”, upon the ground, or else stretched upon a wooden trellis or frame, which stood like a rude fence Plate XV. : Monograph—SEAL-ISLANDS. KENCHING FUR-SEAL SKINS. Interior of the Salt-house at the village, St. Paul Island. Natives planting the pelts in the curing bins or ‘‘kenches;” salting, assorting, ete. THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 77 they become “pickled”, and they are suited then at any time to be taken up and rolled into bundles, of two skins to the package, with the hairy side out, tightly corded, ready for shipment from the islands. AVERAGE WEIGHT OF RAW SKINS.—The average weight of a two-year-old skin is 54 pounds; of a three- year-old skin, 7 pounds; and, of a four-year-old skin, 12 pounds ; so that as the major portion of the catch is two or three year-olds, these bundles of two skins each have an average weight of from 12 to 15 pounds. In this shape they go into the hold of the company’s steamer at St. Paul,* and are counted out from it in San Francisco. Then they are either at once shipped to London by the Isthmus of Panama in the same shape, only packed up in large hogsheads of from 20 to 40 bundles to the package, or expressed by railroad, via New York, to the same destination. PACKING SKINS FOR SHIPMENT.—The work of bundling the skins is not usually commenced by the natives until the close of the last week’s sealing; or, in other words, those skins ; which they first took, three weeks ago, are now so pickled by the salt in which they have been lying ever since, as to render them eligible for this operation and immediate shipment. The moisture of the air dissolves and destroys a very large quantity of the saline preservative which the company brings up annually in the form of rock-salt, principally obtained at Carmen island, Lower California. LAW PROTECTING THE SEALS.—The Alaska Commercial Company, 2 by the provisions of law under which they enjoy their franchise, are A bundle of two skins. permitted to take 100,000 male seals annually, and no more, from the Pribylov islands. This they do in June and July of every year. After that season, the skins rapidly grow worthless, as the animals enter into shedding, and, if taken, would not pay for transportation and the tax. These natives are paid 40 cents a skin for the labor, and they keep a close account of the progress of the work every day; they do so, as it is all done by them, and they know within 50 skins, one way or the other, when the whole number have been secured each season. This is the only occupation of the 398 people here, and they naturally look well after it. The interest and close attention paid by these natives, on both islands, to the “holluschickie” and this business, was both gratifying and instructive to mne during my residence there. ERRONEOUS POPULAR IDEAS.—The common or popular notion in regard to seal-skins is, that they are worn by those animals just as they appear when offered for sale; that the fur-seal swims about, exposing the same soft 4y ~ adjacent to the killing-grounds; it was the accumulation of such air-dried skins from the Pribyloy islands, at Sitka, which rotted so ir 1803, that “750,000 of them were cut up, or thrown out into the sea”, completely destroyed. Had they been treated as they now are, such a calamity and hideous waste could not have ocenrred. The method of air-drying which the old settlers employed, is well portrayed by the practice of the natives now, who treat a few hundred sea-lion skins to the process every fall; preparing them thus for shipment to Oonalashka, where they are used by brother Aleuts in covering their bidarkies or kyacks. The natives, in speaking to me of this matter, said that whenever the weather was rough and the wind blowing hard, these air-dried seal-skins, as they were tossed from the bidarrah to the ship’s deck, numbers of them would frequently turn in the wind and fly clean over the vessel into the water beyond, where they were lost. Under the old order of affairs, prior to the present management, the skins were packed up and carried on the backs of the boys and girls, women and old men, to the salt-houses, or drying-frames. When I first arrived, season of 1872, a slight variation was made in this respect, by breaking a small Siberian bull into harness and hitching it to a cart, in which the pelts were hauled. Before the cart was adjusted, however, and the ‘‘buik” taught to pull, it was led out to the killing-grounds, by a ring in its nose, and literally covered with the green seal-hides, which were thus packed to the kenches. The natives were delighted with even this partial assistance ; but now they have no further concern about it at all, for several mules and carts render prompt and ample service. They were introduced here, first, in 1874. The Russian-American Company and also the Alaska Commercial Company have brought up three or four horses to St. Paul, but they have been unfortunate in losing them all soon after landing, the voyage and the climate combined being inimical to equine health; but the mules of the present order of affairs have been successful in their transportation to and residence on the Pribyloy islands. One, the first of these horses just referred to, perhaps did not have a fair chance for its life. It was saddled one morning, and several camp-kettles, coffee-pots, ete., slung on the erupper for the use of the Russian agent, who was going up to Northeast point for a week or ten days’ visit. He got into the saddle, and while en route, near Polavina, a kettle or pot broke loose behind, the alarmed horse kicked its rider promptly oft, and disappeared on a full run, in the fog, going toward the bogs of Kamminista, where its lifeless and fox-gnawed body was found several days afterward. * The shallow depths of Bering sea give rise to a very bad surf, and though none of the natives can swim, as far as I could learn, yet they are quite creditable surfmen, and work the heavy ‘“‘baidar” in and out from the landing adroitly and circumspectly. They put a sentinel upon the bluffs over Nah Speel, and go and come between the rollers as he signals. They are not graceful oarsmen under any circumstances, but can pull heartily and coolly together when ina pinch. The apparent ease and unconcern with which they handled their bidarrah here in the ‘‘ baroon” during the fall of 1869,so emboldened three or four sailors of the United States Revenue Marine eutter “Lincoln” that they lost their lives in that surf through sheer carelessness. The “gig” in which they were coming ashore ‘“broached to” in the breakers just outside of the cove, and their lifeless forms were soon after thrown up by the merciless waves on the Lagoon rookery. Three graves of these men are plainly marked on the slope of the Black Blutis. There is a false air of listlessness and gentleness about an open sea, or roadstead roller, that is very apt to deceive even watermen of good understanding. The crushing, overwhelming power with which an ordinary breaker will hurl a large ship’s boat on rocks awash, uiust be personally experienced ere it is half appreciated. The bundled skins are carried from the salt-houses to the baidar, when the order for shipment is given, and pitched into that lighter one by one, to be rapidly stowed; 700 to 1,200 bundles make the average single load; then, when alongside the steamer, they are again tossed up, and on her deck, from whence they are stowed in the hold. 78 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. ae coat with which our ladies of fashion so delight to cover their tender forms during inclement winter. This is a very great mistake ; few skins are less attractive than is the seal-skin when it is taken from the creature. The fur is not visible; it is concealed entirely by a coat of stiff overhair, dull, gray-brown, and grizzled. It takes three of them to make a lady’s sacque and boa; and in order that the reason for their costliness may be apparent, I take great pleasure in submitting a description of the tedious and skillful labor necessary to their dressing ere they are fit for sale, which will be found in the appendix. SKETCH OF THE RuSsio-CHINA TRADE IN FUR-SEAL PELTRIES.—During the whole of the extended period, from 1799 to 1867, inclusive, the Russians shipped and sold nearly all of the fur-seal skins that were taken from the Pribylov islands, in that great international mart of Kiachta, on the Chinese frontier. Since the Americans have taken control, the sales have all been practically made in London. The Alaska Commercial Company sells every one of its skins from the Pribylov and Commander groups there, in the same wareroom where the Hudson Bay Company, when it had a thrifty existence and was a power, used to auction its furs annually. As millions of the air-dried pelts taken from the séal-islands of .\laska have been bartered in the China-Russian station, a brief description of Kiachta may be interesting. Prior to 1722, the Russians enjoyed a treaty with China which sanctioned the individual traveling of Muscovitie traders direct from the frontier to Pekin; after a period of three and thirty years, the Russians were abruptly and entirely deprived of those coveted commercial privileges. After all intercourse between the two countries liad ceased for five years, the Russians obtained a new treaty in 1728, by which, in order to prevent future misunderstandings, the international trade, as far at least as private individuals were concerned, should be conducted on the boundary line, exactly upon the same spot where this new treaty was negotiated. Here Kiachta was built, though she still had a rival in Pekin; for, by the provisions of the new treaty, government trading caravans were allowed to penetrate to the capital of the Chinese empire. But, in 1762, Catharine the Second relinquished this imperial monopoly, and that action at once rendered this little town the grand and sole emporium of commerce between Russia and China. DESCRIPTION OF KrAcHTA.—Kiachta, then, as now, stands on a rivulet of the same name, which, rising in in Siberia and crossing the frontier line, washes the foundations of Maimatschin, a China town only a few miles away. Taken by itself, it is beset on all sides by rugged mountains; and the streamlet which forms a bond of union between these large empires of Asia is so tiny that, even by the aid of damming, it often fails to afford an adequate supply of water to the four or five thousand dwellers on its banks. These two small settlements, Kiachta and Maimatschin, are situated as nearly as possible on the fiftieth parallel of latitude, being about 1,000 miles from Pekin and 4,000 from Moscow. Though the Chinese route is much the shortest on the map, it is practically as hard a journey; for at a distance of about a week’s march from Pekin, the Chinese have a forty days’ tramp, and upward, over a dismal desert of table-land. It is parched with heat during one-half of the year, and covered with snow during the other. The Russians, however, whether they come from the west with manufactured goods, or from the north and east with furs, enjoy the advantages of a peopled country and of navigable waters nearly all the way to Irkutsk, and when they have met at this, the common center of all the lines of communication, they may, and often do, prosecute the rest of their journey to the very neighborhood of Kiachta by crossing lake. Baikal and ascending its principal tributary, the Selenga river. CHARACTER OF THE TRADE.—The Russian traders bring chiefly furs, woolens, cottons, and linens, while the Chinese bring teas principally, also silks, and sugar-candy; thus the seal-skins of Alaska were wont to go first from the seal-islands to Sitka; there they were assorted and put up into square bales, about 3 feet by 2, pressing , the bundles in an old fashioned hand-lever press, and cording them while under this pressure; then envelopes of green walrus hide were sewed over them, and the packages, duly numbered, went to the Okotsk by ship, then to Kiachta by pack-horses, where the buyers of Pekin finally inspected and purchased them, giving in exchange the celebrated black teas of Maimatschin, the finest brands in all Mongolia, and produced only in the north of China, and which can be more cheaply transported from thence to Siberia than to Canton. CHINESE DISPOSITION OF FUR-SEAL PELTRIES.—The Chinese buyers sent their Pribylov peltries down to their home-markets on camels, and in carts drawn by oxen, to Kalgan, where the seal-skins were again sold to other dealers, who carried them to the ultimate retail trade. VOLUME OF KIACHTA TRADE IN 1837.—What the fur-trade’ of Kiachta to-day is, even though the rare skin of Callorhinus is seldom seen, I can find no data; but in 1837 the native land furs were represented by a value of 7,406,188 roubles, and the peltries from Russian America, including the fur-seals, sea-otter, and all the Alaskan land catch, was 1,600,000 roubles. How many fur-seals were sold in this aggregate, I cannot ascertain, but the scanty yield during the two and three years preceding would not warrant any considerable showing. JHINESE TRADERS.—The Chinese at Kiachta were at first much more shrewd in their bargains than were their Russian neighbors; but the Slavonic instincts did not need much brushing up ere they were fully equal to all emergencies; the methods of the Chinese in selecting seal-skins were elaborate and lengthy—each pelt was handled and measured, then a little metal tag attached on which the result was recorded. I find a great deal of eonfusion in the data at my command as to what the average price was in this market, because the Russians took THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OIF ALASKA. 79 all ages, and at all stages of the season, from June to December; consequently, the number of really prime skins was small compared with the whole aggregate sold; the best pelts brought from “10 to 15 roubles” =$8 to $12.50; the average sales were made, however, as low as from $4 to $5 per skin. Techmainov gives the most information touching the value of Russian American furs in those times, that I can find; but, in regard to specific figures for the fur-seal quotations, he is only vague and general, the reason doubtless being that the whole volume of trade at Kiachta was and is exclusively one of barter, without the intervention of coin on either side. SEASON OF KTACHTA COMMERCE.—The business life of Kiachta is never fully aroused until winter has well set in, continuing until spring. There is no written regulation to this effect, but it has the force of law through habit. In disposing of their commodities, the Chinese have considerable local advantage, because their teas never remain a single season unsold at Maimatschin, while the Russian goods, partly through a diminution of the demand, and partly through the artifices of the Celestials, are often so depreciated in value as to have to wait two and three years for a market. DEMAND OF CHINESE FOR FURS.—The Chinese have from time immemorial been solicitous purchasers of furs. The northern provinces of their dominions are not only subjected to an extremely rigorous winter climate, but are those where the most wealthy reside, because the best teas of the Celestial Empire grow there; hence the desire for fur robes and garments as measures of comfort during cold weather is universal among the inhabitants; they constitute an important part of the wardrobe of every important Chinaman throughout all “Kathay”. A Russian authority, Paul von Krusenstern, says: ‘‘With the least change of air the Chinese immediately alter their dress; and eyen at Canton, which is within the confines of the tropics, they wear furs in the winter.” FIRST TRAFFIC IN FURS BETWEEN AMERICA AND CuHiNnA.—It is a curious fact, that until Captain John Gore anchored, December 18, 1779, near Canton with the ships of Cook’s last voyage, from Kamtchatka and the northward, the furs which these English seamen then offered to the Chinese for sale were the first peltries ever brought into their markets by sea. The Chinese had hitherto gained everything of this character from without their précincts, by overland trade with Siberian merchants, or from the Burmese frontier via Bhamo, When Captain Gore, the surviving senior officer of Cook’s last voyage, 1776-80, returned to England, he found that war was existing with the United States, France, and Spain; the British government determined to withhold from the world all information of the voyage; hence it was not until the winter of 178485 that it was published. The statements contained in this work respecting the great abundance of animals yielding fine furs on the northwest coast, and the successful pecuniary bartering of the ships at Canton, stirred up a great many active men who fitted out vessels for the traffic. The first individual trader from the south on the northwest coast, was John Hanna, an Englishman, who sailed from Canton, May, 1785, and filled his little schooner with sea-otter skins at Nootka; then Portlock and Dixon, and Meares, in 1786; Gray and Kendrick, the first Americans, in 1787, head a long list of traders who came successively after them. In no record whatever of this pelagic fur-trade can I find any mention made of the skin of the fur-seal, nor the slightest hint whatever until the period of the Fraser river gold excitement, in 1862, when the first quotation of a fur-seal skin is made, taken at sea off the straits of Fuca. WHAT THE RUSSIANS KNEW OF THE BUSINESS.—Perkaps the best, and an entirely correct, epitomé of what the Russians at headquarters of the company in Sitka really knew, biographically and commercially, of the fur-seal, is embodied in the following words of Governor Simpson, of the Hudson Bay Company, who, in 184142, was the guest of Governor Etholine. He had supreme control of Alaskan life and trade then, and gave to his English official peer, doubtless, all the knowledge which he possessed: Some twenty or thirty years ago there was a most wasteful destruction of the seal, when young and old, wale and female, were indiscriminately knocked on the head. This imprudence, as any one might have expected, proved detrimental in two ways. The race was almost extirpated; and the market was glutted to such a degree, at the rate for some time of two hundred thousand skins a year, that the prices did not even pay the expenses of carriage. The Russians, however, have now adopted nearly the same plan which the Hudson Bay Company pursues, in recruiting any of its exhausted districts, killing only a limited number of such males as have attained their full growth, a plan peculiarly applicable to the fur-seal, inasmuch as its habits render the system of husbanding the stock as easy and certain as that of destroying it. In the month of May, with something like the regularity of an almanac, the fur-seals make their appearance at the island of St. Paul, one of the Aleutian group. Each old male brings a herd of females under his protection, varying in number according to his size and strength. The weaker brethren are obliged to content themselves with half a dozen wives, while some of the sturdier and fiercer fellows preside over havems that are two hundred strong. From the date of their arrival in May to that of their departure in October, the whole of them are priucipally ashore on the beach. The females go down to the sca once or twice a day, while the male, morning, noon, and night, watches his charge with the utmost jealousy, postponing even the pleasures of eating and drinking and sleeping to the duty of keeping his favorites together. If any young gallant ventures by stealth among any senior chief’s bevy of beauties, he generally atones for his imprudence with his-life, being torn to pieves by the old fellow, and such of the fair ones as may have given the intruder any encouragement are pretty sure to catch it in the shape of some secondary punishment. The ladies are in the straw about a fortnight after they arrive at St. Paul; about two or three weeks afterward they lay the single foundation, being all that is necessary, of next season’s proceeding, aud the remainder of their sojourn they devote exclusively to the rearing of their young. At last the whole band departs, no one knows whither. The mode of capture is this: at the proper time the whole are driven, like a flock of sheep, to the establishment, which is a mile distant from the sea, and there the males of four years, with the exception of the few that are left to keep up the breed, are separated from the rest and killed. In the days of promiscuous massacre such of the mothers as had lost their pups would ever and auon return to the establishment, absolutely harrowing up the sympathies of the wives and the daughters of the hunters, accustomed as they were to such scenes, with their doleful lamentations. 80 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. ~ The fur-seal attains the age of fifteen or twenty years, but not more. The females do not bring forth young till they are five years old. The hunters have frequently marked their ears each season, and many of the animals have been notched in this way ten times, but very few of them oftener. ' Under the present system, the fur-seals are increasing rapidly in number. Previously to its introduction, the animal hunts had dwindled down to three and four thousand. They have now gradually got up to thrice that amount, and they are likely soon to equal the full demand, not exceeding thirty thousand skins, of the Russian government.* a It is valuable, as showing that, as long ago as 184142, under Russian management, more than 30,000 skins per annum would be a loss, and not profitable to take from the seal-islands. Also, that, though the tardy recognition of the fact that females should not be slaughtered was made on the Pribylov islands shortly prior to 184142, yet suitable regulations had not yet been made for the management of the business, inasmuch as all classes, ‘‘as a whole,” were driven to the killing-grounds. This harassed and disturbed the females quite as badly as if killed outright. In 1845 the present order of implicit non-trespass upon the breeding-rookeries was first established, and [ am sorry that I cannot find the name of the intelligent Russian who promulgated it, so that it might be known and respected, as it so well deserves. No FUR-SEALS KNOWN TO EARLY TRADE.—The homely, yet explicit, letters of William Beresford should be noticed, for he sailed from London in 1797~98, as a trader with Portlock and Dixon, and he gives, perhaps, the only straightforward synopsis of the fur-trade of the northwest coast as it was then. He reviews the subject as it presents itself to him from Cook’s inlet to Cape Mendocino, in the series of field-notes which are printed and form the body and soul of Dixon’s Voyage. Nowhere does the author mention the fur-seal in this narrative, covering as it does two years’ cruising between Kadiak and Cape Flattery. He evidently had not even heard of it, though at the time the Russians were working the Pribylov islands barbarously, taking hundreds of thousands of skins. When I first went to the northwest coast, May, 1865, I learned from the venerable Doctor Tolmie, a recently retired chief factor of the Vancouver (Hudson Bay Company’s) district, a great deal of the fur-bearing animals of that country, as known to the celebrated company which he had represented. I find no mention in my memoranda made at the time, that he indicated the skin of the fur-seal as one of the long list of items of trade; and while I was in that country between the Stikeen mouth and Puget sound, 186567, inclusive, I never heard a single word of the fur-seal, and I, myself, then never recognized its name. I do not think, therefore, it worth while to discuss the idle rumors, now prevalent to some extent, as to the “fact” that the fur-seal is breeding in some lonely nook here and there along the coast. The Indians would have known it full well a hundred years ago, and such anxious seekers after choice peltries as William Beresford and the Hudson Bay Company, would have profited accordingly. PELAGIC FUR-SEALING A RECENT ENTERPRISE.—Fur-seals then, as now, were annually seen in all probability by the natives of the coast at sea, between Prince of Wales island and the Columbia river; but, either they were not deemed worthy of the labor in capture, or else the superior value of the sea-otter chase drew every attention of the pelagic hunters, just as it does to-day. At least I feel warranted in this conclusion, by the full and explicit details which Alexander Mackenzie gives of the furs that he saw in the natives’ possession when he came overland from Montreal to the Pacific ocean in 1793. He describes the sea-otter almost exclusively. He speaks, however, of the natives having seal’s flesh for sale; that it was eaten raw, ‘‘cut into chunks.” Most likely this seal-meat of Mackenzie’s notice was that of Phoca vitulina, which animal I have seen myself, nearly 100 miles up the Fraser river from the coast. However, it may have been that of the fur-seal, for he was among those savages who inhabited the islands and coast of Queen Charlotte sound, where these animals are to-day often seen sleeping or sporting in the broad reach of that open roadstead. 14. ECONOMIC VALUE OF THE SKINS, OIL, AND FLESH OF Tee FUR-SEAL. REASON, WHY FUR-SEAL SKINS ARE ALL SOLD IN LonpDoN.—On account of the fact that the labor in this country, especially skilled labor, commands so much more per diem in the return of wages than it does in London or Belgium, it is not practicable for the Alaska Commercial Company, or any othér company here, to attempt to dress and put upon the market the catch of Bering sea, which is in fact the entire catch of the whole world. Our people understand the theory of dressing these skins perfectly; but they cannot compete with the cheaper labor of the Old World. Therefore, nine-tenths nearly of the fur-seal skins taken every year are annually purchased and dressed in London, and from thence distributed all over the civilized world where furs are worn and prized. CAUSE OF VARYING PRICES OF DRESSED SEAL-SKINS.—The great variations of the value of seal-skin sacques, ranging from $75 up to $350, and even $500, is not often due to the variance in the quality of the fur originally; but it is due to the quality of the work whereby the fur was treated and prepared for wear. For instance, the cheap sacques are so defectively dyed that a little moisture causes them to soil the collars and cuffs of their owners, and fi a little exposure causes them speedily to fade and look ragged. A properly dyed skin, one that has been conscientiously and laboriously finished, for it is a labor requiring great patience and great skill, will not rub off ox *An Overland Journey Round the World, 1841-1842, Sir George Simpson, Governor-in-Chief Hudson Bay Company’s territories; Ne Philadlephia, 1847, pp. 130-131. i : Bees: THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 81 “erock” the whitest linen when moistened ; and it will wear the weather, as I have myself seen it on the form of a sea-captain’s wife, for six and seven successive seasons, without showing the least bit of dimness or raggedness. I speak of dyeing alone; I might say the earlier steps of unhairing in which the over-hair is deftly combed out and off from the skin, heated to such a point that the roots of the fur are not loosened, while those to the coarser hirsute growth are. If this is not done with perfect uniformity, the fur will never lay smooth, no matter how skillfully dyed; it will always have a rumpled, ruffled look. Therefore, the hastily-dyed sacques are cheap; and are enhanced in order of value just as the labor of dyeing is expended upon them. GRADATION OF THE FUR OF CALLORHINUS URSINUS.—The gradation of the fur of Callorlinus may, perhaps, be best presented in the following manner: 1 YEAR OLD 6: WELL Grown: at July 1 of every season: FUR fully developed as to uniform length and thickness and evenness of distribution; it is lighter in color, and softer in texture, than hereafter, during the life of the animal; average weight of skin as removed by the sealers from the car*ass, 44 pounds. 2 YEAR OLD 6: WELL GROWN: at June 1 of every season: FUR fully developed as to even length and thickness and uniformity of distribution; it has now attained the darker buff and fawn color, sometimes almost brown, which it retains throughout the rest of the life of the animal; it is slightly and perceptibly firmer ana stiffer than it was last year, not being at all ‘‘fluffy” as in the yearling dress now; average weight of skin, as taken from the body, 54 pounds. 3 YEAR OLD 6: WELL GROWN: at June 1 of every season: FUR fully developed, as to even length, but a shade longer over the shoulders, where the incipient “wig” is forming; otherwise perfectly uniform in thickness and even distribution; this is the very best grade of pelt which the seal affords during its life; average weight of skin, as taken from the body, 7 pounds. _ 4 YEAR OLD 6: WELL GROWN: at June 1 of every season: FUR fully developed as to even length, except a decided advance in length and perceptible stiffness over the shoulders, in the “ wig”; otherwise perfectly uniform in thickness and even distribution ; this grade is almost as safe to take, and as good as is the three-year- old; average weight of skin, as removed, 12 pounds. 5 YEAR OLD 6: WELL GROWN: at May to June i of every seuson: FUR fully developed, but much longer and decidedly coarser in the ‘‘ wig” region; otherwise, uniform in thickness and distribution; the coarseness of the fur over the shoulders and disproportionate length thereon destroys that uniformity necessary for rating A 1 in the market; in fact it does not pay to take this skin; average weight, 16 pounds. 6 YEAR OLD 6: WELL GROWN: from May to June 1 of every season: FUR fully developed, still longer and stiffer in the ‘‘wig” region, with a slightly thinner distribution over the post-dorsal region, and shorter; this skin is never taken—it is profitless; average weight, 2o pounds. 7 YEAR OLD AND UPWARD 4: from May to June 1 of every season: FUR fully developed, but very unevenly distributed, being relatively scant and short over the posterior dorsal region, while it is twice as long and very coarse in the covering to the shoulders especially and the neck and chest. Skins are valueless to the fur trade; weights, 45 to 60 pounds. The analysis, as above, is a brief epitomé of the entire subject; only, it should be added that the female skins are as finely furred as are the best grades of the males; and also, that age does not cause the quality of their pelage to deteriorate, which it does to so marked an extent in the males. But, taking them into consideration is entirely out of the question, and ought to be so forever. The foetal coat of the pup is composed of coarse black hair alone, the underwool not at all developed, when this is shed and the new coat put on in September and October, it is furred and haired as a yearling, which I diagnose above; this pelage has, however, no commercial value. All the skins taken by the company for the last eight years have been prime skins, in the fair sense of the term ; but, all the seal-skin sacques made therefrom have not been of the first quality, by any means. In order that the rules and regulations and the law governing and protecting the interests of the government on these islands may be fully understood, I embody them in the appendix. OI OF THE FUR-SEAL.—I have spoken of the blubber, and as I mentioned it, doubtless the thought will occur, what becomes of the oil contained therein; is it all allowed to waste? A most natural query, and one that’ I made instantly after my first arrival on the islands. I remember seeing 40 or 50 hogsheads and tierces headed up and standing near the foot of the village hill, in which were many thousands of gallons of fur-seal oil. I asked the agent of the company when he was going to ship it; he shrugged his shoulders and said: ‘As soon as it will pay.” I made, during the season, careful notes as to the amount of oil represented by the blubber exposed on the 100,000 young male seal carcasses, and I found that the two and three year old ‘“‘holluschickie” bodies as left by the skinner would not clean up on an average more than a half a gallon of oil; while the four-year-old males would make nearly a gallon. It should be remembered that quite a large portion of the seal’s fat is taken off with the skin, as its presence thereon is necessary to that proper amalgamation and preservation by the salt when it is applied to its fresh surface in the “‘kenches”; hence the amount of oil represented by these carcasses every year is not much over 60,000 gallons. CONDITION OF THE FUR-SEAL OIL MARKET.—When among the seal-oil dealers in New York city, during the month of May, in 1876, I took these notes with me and investigated the standing and the demand for fur-seal oil in their market and the markets of the world; and the statements of these oil experts and dealers were all in accord as to the striking inferiority of fur-seal oil, compared with the hair-seal and sea-elephant oil, which they dealt in largely. The inferiority of the fur-seal oil is due primarily to the offensive odor of the blubber, which 82 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. I have spoken of heretofore. This singularly disagreeable smell does not exist in the blubber of the hair-seal (Phocida), the sea-elephant or sea-lion, and it makes the process of refining very difficult. They said it was almost impossible to properly deodorize it and leave the slightest margin of profit for the manufacturer and the dealer. It was gummy and far darker in color than any other seal-oil, hence it possessed little or no commercial value. Then, again, wher the subject of taking oil from the seal-islands of Alaska is considered, the following obstacles, in addition to the first great objection just cited, arise at once to financial success: the time, trouble, and danger in loading a vessel with oil at the islands where, on account of the absence of a harbor and the frequent succession of violent gales, a ship is compelled to anchor from a mile and a half to three miles from the coast, on which the surf is always breaking. The cost, again, of casks and cooperage will amount to 10 cents per gallon; the cost of the natives’ work in securing and bringing the blubber to the try-works, 10 cents per gallon; the cost of refining it, 10 cents; and the cost of transportation of a cargo of, say, 60,000 gallons will amount to nearly 20 cents per rallon; thus making a gallon of fur-seal oil aggregate in cost to the taker 50 cents, which entails upon him uothing but pecuniary loss when the cargo goes upon the market, and where it is worth only from 40 to 50 cents retail, with a dull sale at that.* FRAGILE CHARACTER OF FUR-SEAL BONES.—I looked at the fur-seal bones, and at first sight it seemed as though a bone-factory might be established there; but a little examination of the singularly light and porous osseous structure of the Callorhinus quickly stifled that enterprise. The skull and larger bones of the skeleton are more like pasteboard than the bone which is so common to our minds. When dried out, the entire skeleton of a three-year-old male will not weigh seven pounds; indeed, I am inclined to think it would be much less than that if thoroughly kiln-dried, as after the fashion of the bone-mills. Therefore, although 100,000 of these skeletons bleach out and are trodden down annually, upon the Pribylov islands, yet they have not the standing for any commercial value whatsoever, considering their distance and difficulty of access from those impoverished fields where they might serve our farmers as fertilizing elements.t DECAY OF SEAL CARCASSES.—Another singular and striking characteristic-of the island of St. Paul, is the fact that this immense slaughtering-field, upon which 75,000 to 90,000 fresh carcasses lie every season, sloughing away into the sand beneath, does not cause any sickness among the people who live right over them, so to speak. The cool, raw temperature, and strong winds, peculiar to the place, seem to prevent any unhealthy effect from the fermentation of decay. The Hlymus and other grasses once more take heart and grow with magical vigor over the unsightly spot, to which the sealing-gang again return, repeating their bateau, which we have marked before, upon this place, three years ago. In that way this strip of ground, seen on my map between the village, the east landing, and the lagoon, contains the bones and the oil-drippings and other fragments thereof, of more than 3,000,000 seals slain since 1786 thereon, while the slaughter-fields at Novastoshnah record the end of a million more. I remember well the unmitigated sensations of disgust that possessed me when I first landed, April 28, 1872, on the Pribyloy islands, and passed up from the beach, at Lukannon, to the village, over the killing-grounds; though there was a heavy coat of snow on the fields, yet each and every one of 75,000 decaying carcasses was there, and bare, having burned, as it were, their way out to the open air, polluting the same to a sad degree. Iwas laughed at by the residents who noticed my facial contortions, and assured that this state of smell was nothing to what I should soon experience when the frost and snow had fairly melted. They were correct; the odor along by the end of May was terrific punishment to my olfactories, and continued so for several weeks until my sense of smell became blunted *JIn 1873, not having had any experience and not even knowing the views of the oil dealers themselves, I left the seal-islands believing that if the special tax which was then laid upon each gallon of oil as it might be rendered was removed, that it would pay the manufacturer, and in this way employ the natives, many days of the year otherwise idle, profitably. The company assured me that as far as its conduct in the matter was concerned, it would be perfectly willing to employ the natives in rendering fur-seal oil, and give them all the profit, not desiring itself to coin a single penny out of the whole transaction; possibly this could be done if the special tax of 55 cents. per gallon was stricken off. The matter was then urged upon the Treasury Department, by myself, in October, 1873, and the tax was repealed by the department soon after. But it seems that I was entirely mistaken as to the quality and value of the oil itself. I made, to satisfy myself, a very careful investigation of the subject in 1876, going personally to the leading dealers in whale and seal oil of New York city, and they were unanimous in their opposition to handling fur-seal oil, some of them saying that they would not touch it at any price. I felt considerably chagrined, because had I known as much in 1873, I would have saved myself then, and my friends subsequently, a good deal of unnecessary trouble and profitless action. +The bones of Callorhinus, though apparently strong, are surprisingly light and porous; indeed, they resemble those of 4ves more than those commonly credited to mammalia; the osseous structure, however, of Phoca vitulina, the hair-seal which I examined there, side by side with that of the fur-seal, was very much more solid and weighed, bone for bone of equal age, just about one-third more, the skull especially ; also the shoulder-blades and the pelvic series. If the bones of the animals were not divested of their cartilaginous continuations and connections, then the aggregate weight of the fur-seal is equal to its hairy-skinned relative; the entire skeleton of a three-year-old ¢ Callorhinus, completely divested by sea-fleas (Amphipoda) of all flesh and fat, but with every ligamentary union and articulation perfect (the cartilaginous toe-ends all present), was just 8 pounds, and I have reason to believe that when it became air-dried and bleached it did not weigh more than 4 or 5. The bones of the older seals are relatively very much heavier, but only relatively; the frailness and fragility is constant through life, though the skulls of the old males do thicken up on their crests and about the rami of their jaws very perceptibly. Sea-lion bones are, however, normally strong and heavy; the bone of the fur-seal is evidently stout enough, but it is singularly light, while the walrus, that dull, sluggish brute, has a massive osteological frame. I made these relative examinations more especially to ascertain something which might pass for a correct estimate of what the bony waste on the killing-grounds of the Pribylov islands amounted to annually, with a view of its possible utilization. The spongy bones of the whole 100,000 annually laid out would not render according to my best judgment, 50 tons of dry bone-meal—an insignificant result and unworthy of further notice on these islands. ¢ THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 83 and callous to this stench by long familiarity. Like the other old residents I then became quite unconscious of the prevalence of this rich “funk”, and ceased to notice it. Those who land here, as I did, for the first time, nervously and invariably declare that such an atmosphere must breed a plague or a fever of some kind in the village, and hardly credit the assurance of those who have resided in it for the whole period of their lives, that such a thing was never known to St. Paul, and that the island is remarkably healthy. Itis entirely true, however, and, after a few weeks’ contact, or a couple of months’ experience, at the longest, the most sensitive nose becomes used to that aroma, wafted as it is hourly, day in and out, from decaying seal-flesh, viscera, and blubber; and, also, it ceases to be an object of attention. The cool, sunless climate during the warmer months has miouttedly much to do with checking too rapid decomposition, and consequent trouble therefrom, which would otherwise arise from the killing-grounds. The freshly-skinned carcasses of this season do not seem to rot substantially until the following year; then they rapidly slough away into the sand upon which they rest; the envelope of blubber left upon each body seems to act as an air-tight receiver, holding most of the putrid gases that evolved from the decaying viscera until their volatile tension causes it to give way; fortunately the line of least resistance to that merciful retort is usually right where it is adjacent to the soil, so both putrescent fluids and much of the stench within is deodorized and absorbed before it can contaminate the atmosphere to any great extent. The truth of my observation will be promptly verified, if the skeptic chooses to tear open any one of the thousands of gas-distended carcasses in the fall, that were skinned in the killing-season ; if he does so, he will be smitten by the worst smell that human sense can measure; and should he chance to be accompanied by a native, that callous individual, even. will pinch his grimy nose and exclaim, it is a “keeshla pahknoot”! At the close of the third season after the skinning of the seal’s body, it will have so rotted and sloughed down, as to be marked only by the bones and a few of the tendinous ligaments; in other words, it requires from thirty to thirty-six months’ time for a seal carcass to rot entirely away, so nothing but whitened bones remain above ground. The natives govern their driving of the seals and laying out of the fresh bodies according to this fact; for they can, and do, spread this year a whole season’s killing out over the same spot of the field previously covered with such fresh carcasses three summer’s ago; by alternating with the seasons thus, the natives are enabled to annually slaughter all of the “‘holluschickie” on a relatively smill area, close by the salt-houses, and the village, as I have indicated on the map of St. Paul. DESCRIPTION OF KILLING-GROUND OF Sr. PAuL.—tThe killing-ground of St. Paul is a bottomless sand flat, only a few feet above high water, and which unites the village hill and the reef with the island itself; it is not a stone’s throw from the heart of the settlement—in fact, it is right in town—not even suburban. DESCRIPTION OF THE KILLING-GROUND AT ST. GEORGE.—On St. George the “holluschickie” are regularly driven to that northeast slope of the village hill which drops down gently to the sea, where they are slaughtered, close by and under the houses, as at St. Paul; those droves which are brought in from the North Rookery to the west, and also Starry Ateel, are frequently driven right through the village itself. This slaughtering field of St. George is hard tufa and rocky, but it slopes down to the ocean rapidly enough to drain itself well; hence the coustant rain and humid fogs of summer carry off that which would soon clog and deprive the natives from using the ground year after year in rotation, as they do. Several seasons have occurred, however, when this natural cleansing of the ground above-mentioned has not been as thorough as must be to be used again immediately; then the seals were skinned back of the village hill, and in the ravine to the west on the same slope from the summit. This village site of St. George to-day, and the killing-grounds adjoining, used to be, during early Russian occupation, in Pribylov’s time, a large sea-lion rookery, the finest one known to either island, St. Paul or St. George. Natives are living there who told me that their fathers had been employed in shooting and driving these sea- lions so as to deliberately break up the breeding-ground, and thus rid the island of what they considered a superabundant supply of the Humetopias, and thereby to aid and encourage the fresh and increased accession of fur-seals from the vast majority peculiar to St. Paul, which could not take place while the sea-lions held the land.* " *The St. Paul village site is located wholly on the northern slope of the village hill, where it drops from its greatest elevation, at the flagstaff, of 125 feet gently down to the sandy killing-flats below ‘and between it and the main body of the island. The houses are all placed facing the north, at regular intervals along the terraced streets, which run S. E. and N. W. There are 74 or 80 native houses, 10 large and smaller buildings of the company, the treasury agent’s residence; the church, the cemetery crosses, and the school building are all standing here in coats of pure white paint. The survey of the town site, when rebuilt, was made by Mr. H. W. McIntyre, of the Alaska Commercial Company, who, himself, planned and devised the entire reconstruction. No oftal.or decaying refuse of any kind is allowed to stand around the dwellings or lie in the streets. It required much determined effort on the part of the whites to effect this sanitary reform, but now most of the natives take equal pride in keeping their surroundings clean and unpolluted. The site of the St. George settlement is more exposed and bleak than is the one we have just referred to on St. Paul. It is planted directly on the rounded summit of one of the first low hills that rise from the sea on the north shore; indeed, it is the only hill that does slope directly and gently to the salt water on the island. Here are 24 to 30 native cottages, laid with their doors facing the opposite sides of a short street between, running also east and west, as at St. Paul. There, however, each house looks down upon the rear of its neighbor, in front and below. Here the houses face each other, on the top of the hill. The treasury agent’s quarters, the company’s six or seyen buildings, the school-house, and the church are all neatly painted, and this settlement, from its prominent position, shows from the sea to a much better advantage than does the larger one of St. Paul. The same municipal sanitary regulations are enforced here. Those who may visit the St. George and St. Paul of to-day will find the streets dry and hard as floors. They have been covered with a thick layer of volcanic cinders on both islands. 84 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. ~ F. THE SEA-LION (EUMETOPIAS STELLERI). 15. LIFE-HISTORY OF THE SEA-LION. NATURAL INFERIORITY TO THE FUR-SEAL.—This aninal, also a characteristic pinniped of the Pribylov islands, ranks much below the fur-seal in perfected physical organization and intelligence. It can, as well as its more sagacious and valuable relative, the Callorhinus, be seen, perhaps, to better advantage on these islands than elsewhere in the whole world that I know of. The marked difference between the sea-lion and the fur-seal up here, is striking; the former being twice the size of its cousin. The size and strength of the northern sea-lion, Humetopias Stelleri, its perfect adaptation to its physical surroundings, unites with a singular climatic elasticity of organization; it seems to be equally as well satisfied with the ice-floes of the Kaimtchatka sea to the northward, or the polished bowlders and the hot sands of the coast of California.* It is an animal, as it appears upon its accustomed breeding-grounds at Northeast point, where I saw it, that commanded my admiration by its imposing. presence and sonorous voice, rearing itself before me with head, neck, and chest upon its powerful fore-arms, over six feet in height; while its heavy bass voice drowned the booming of the surf that thundered on the rocks at its flanks. THE PHYSICAL PRESENCE OF THE SEA-LION.—The size and strength of the adult sea-lion male-will be better appreciated, when I say that it has an average length of ten and eleven feet, osteologically, with an enormous girth of eight to nine feet around the chest and shoulders; but, while the anterior parts of the frame are as perfect and powerful on land as in sea, those posterior are ridiculously impotent when the huge beast leaves its favorite element. Still, when hauled up beyond the reach of the brawling surf, as it rears itself, shaking the spray from its tawny chest and short grizzly mane, it has that leonine appearance and bearing, greatly enhanced, as the season advances, by the rich golden rufous-color of its coat, the savage gleam of its expression, due probably to the sinister muzzle and cast of its eye. This optical organ is not round and full, soft and limpid, like the fur-seal’s, but it is an eye like that of a bull-dog, small, and clearly showing, under its heavy lids, the white or sclerotic coat, with a light brown iris. Its teeth gleam and glisten in pearly whiteness against the dark tongue and the shadowy recesses of its wide, deep mouth; the long, sharp, broad-based canines, when bared by the wrathful snarling of its gristled lips, glittered more wickedly, to my eye, than the keenest sword ever did in the hand of man.t With these teeth alone, backed by the enormous muscular power of a mighty neck and broad shoulders, the sea-lion confines its battles to its kind, spurred by terrible energy and heedless and persistent brute courage. No animals that I have ever seen in combat presented a more savage or more cruelly fascinating sight than did a brace of old sea-lion bulls which met under my eyes near the Garden cove at St. George. SEA-LIONS FIGHTING AT ToLSTOI.—Here was a sea-lion rookery, the outskirts of which I had trodden upon for the first time. These old males, surrounded by their meek, polygamous families, were impelled toward each other by those latent fires of hate and jealousy, which seemed to burst forth and fairly consume the angry rivals. Opening with a long, round, vocal prelude, they gradually came together, as the fur-seal bulls do, with averted heads, as though the sight of each other was sickening—but fight they must. One would play against the other for an unguarded moment in which to assume the initiative, until it had struck its fangs into the thick skin of its opponent’s jowl; then, clenching its jaws, was not shaken off until the struggles of its tortured victim literally *The sea-lion certainly seems to have a more elastic constitution than is possessed by the fur-seal; in other words, the former can live under greater natural extremes of climate than can the latter. A careful test of this question was made by the late R. B. Woodward, in the aquaria of his famous gardens at San Francisco. He told me at the Grand Hotel, in 1873, that he should not attempt to keep another fur-seal alive in his tanks; that every one of the half dozen live specimens which he had placed therein at different intervals during the last three years had died—began to droop and waste away as soon as they were installed in their new quarters; but he seldom lost a sea-lion, except from clear or natural reasons. Mr. Woodward, from his practical experience, was positive in his belief that no living adult fur-seal could ever be exhibited in New York; while he thought that the sea-lion, both Zalophus and Eumetopias, could be carried alive, and in good condition, all over this country from New Orleans to Montreal, or San Francisco to Bangor. He said, ‘‘ Our black sea-lion (Zalophus) is tougher than the larger kind (Humetopias), and is just the creature for showmen.” +The teeth of the fur-seal are not, as a rule, clean and white, as they are in the mouths of most carnivora; they are badly discolored by black, brown, and yellowish coatings, especially so with regard to the males; the pup’s milk teeth are complete exponents of the dental formula of adolescence, but are small, brittle, mostly black and brown in color; with their shedding, however, the permanent teeth come out quite clear, and glistening white; still, again, in a year or two they rapidly lose their purity of tint, being discolored as above stated. The sea-lion pups, also, are born with dingy, dusky milk teeth, but I found that when their permanent set was grown it usually retained, even into old age, its primitive whiteness. This difference between these animals is quite marked, which, together with the opposite characters of their blubber, mentioned hereafter, constitute a very curions basis of differentiation. — The fur-seal pup, when it spits or coughs in fright, opens its mouth wide, and the small black and brown teeth seem sadly ont of place, set in the bright, rosy gums around the fresh pink tinge of the tongue and under the red, flushed palate. The canines and incisors of Callorhinus and Humetopias are well rooted, but the molars are not; their alveoli are only partly filled, so that when the fleshy gums are removed these teeth will easily rattle out of their sockets. In looking over hundreds and thousands of the skulls of Callorhinus as they bleach out on the killing-grounds, I was struck by their astonishing lack of symmetry; they varied fully as much in their extremes as the skulls of many different genera do, The number of teeth differ also; some jaws have sets of but five molars, others six, and others seven. ‘QL. -ZL8T “SpuRIsT AotAqirg ‘xoyyne ayy Aq sorpnys-oF1'T (‘selTeutey puB SeTBUL :1deT[91S svidojourng) ‘NOIT-V4S HHL ‘dng Puiniipuicy.@ ‘OORy 8,O/VUL PIO <== = == = ir en eS “Ns ly. i ——— ——_ TMM oy 3, 7 ———— i mT Teme OHHH TUM aR TULA AT NMege%,,) Rey, os ——— cr TB Bt al il mi ig SS ‘ “Ve ihe “Hi il y Din, : ae Sng NN an i i : (( Hy ZZ orn Z - eo — ‘SANV1ISI-TVaS—udeasboucpy TAX 2781d S THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 85 tore them out, leaving an ugly, gaping wound—for the sharp eye-teeth cut a deeper gutter in the skin and flesh than would have held my hand; fired into almost supernatural rage, the injured lion retaliated, quick as a flash, in kind; the hair flew from both of them into the air, the blood streamed down in frothy torrents, while ‘sigh above the boom of the breaking waves and shrill deafening screams of water-fowl over hee 1, rose the ferocious, hoarse, and desperate roar of the combatants. LAND TRAVEL OF THE SEA-LION.—Though provided with flippers, to all external view, as the fur-seal is, the sea-lion cannot, however, make use of them at all in the same free manner. The fur-seal may be driven five or six miles in twenty-four hours, under the most favorable conditions of cool, moist weather; the “‘seevitchie”, however, can only go two miles, the conditions of weather and roadway being the same. The sea-lion balances and swings its long and heavy neck, as a lever, to and fro, with every hitching up behind of its posterior limbs, which it seldom raises from the ground, drawing them up after the fore-feet with a slide over the grass or sand, and rocks, as the case way be; ever and anon pausing to take a sullen and savage survey of the field and the natives, who are driving them. i The sea-lion is polygamons, but it does not maintain any regular system and method in preparing for and attending to its harem, like that so finely illustrated on the breeding-grounds of the fur-seal; and it is not so numerous, comparatively speaking. There are not, according to my best judgment, over ten or twelve thousand of these animals altogether on the breeding-grounds of the Pribylov islands; it does not haul more than a few rods anywhere, or under any circumstances, back from the sea. It cannot be visited and inspected by men as the fur- seals are, for it is so shy and suspicious that, on the slightest warning of an approach, a stampede into the water is a certain result.* PECULIAR COWARDICE OF THE SEA-LION.—That noteworthy, intelligent courage of the fur-seal, though it does not possess half the size nor one-quarter of the muscular strength of the sea-lion, is entirely an ane in the huge bulk and brain of the Humetopias. A boy, with a rattle or a pop-gun, could stampede ten thousand sea-lion bulls, in the height of the breeding-season, to the water; and keep them there for the rest of the season. FIRST ARRIVALS.—The males come out and locate over the narrow belts of the rookery-grounds (sometimes as at St. Paul on the immediate sea-margin of the fur-seal breeding places), two or three weeks in advance of the females, which arrive later, i. e., between the Ist to the 6th of June; and these females are never subjected to that intense, jealous supervision so characteristic of the fur-seal harem. The sea-lion bulls, however, fight savagely among themselves, and turn off from the breeding-ground all the younger and weaker males. THE FEMALE SEA-LION.—The cow sea-lion is not quite half the size of the adult male; she will measure from eight to, nine feet in length osteologically, with a weight of four or five hundred pounds; she has the same general cast of countenance and build of the bull; but, as she does not sustain any fasting period of over a week or ten _ days consecutively, she never comes out so grossly fat as the male. With reference to the weight of the latter, I was particularly unfortunate in not being able to get one of those big bulls to the scales before it had been bled; and in bleeding I know that a flood of blood poured out which should have been recorded in the weight. There- fore, I can only estimate this aggregate avoirdupois of one of the finest-conditioned adult male sea-lions at 1,400 to 1,500 pounds; an average weight, however, might safely be recorded as touching 1,200 pounds.i * That the sea-lion bull shduld be so cowardly in the presence of man, yet so ferocious and brave toward one another and other amphibious animals, struck me as a line of singular contrast with the undaunted bearing of the fur-seal ‘‘seacatch”, which, though being not half the size, or possessing muscular power to anything like its development in the ‘‘seevitchie”, nevertheless, will unflinchingly face, on its station at the rookery, any man, to the death. The sea-lion bulls, certainly, fight as savagely and as desperately, one with another, as the fur-seal males do. There is no question about that; and their superior strength and size only makes the result more effective in! the exhibition of gaping wounds and attendant bloodshed. I have repeatedly seen examples of these old warriors of the sea which were literally scarred, from their muzzles to their posteriors, so badly and so uniformly as to have fairly lost all the color, or general appearance : even, of hair anywhere on their bodies. I recall, in this connection, the sight of an aged male sea-lion, which had evidently been defeated by a younger and more lusty rival, perhaps; it was hauled upon a lava shelf at Southwest point, solitary and alone; the rock around it being literally covered with pools of pus, which was oozing out and trickling down from a score of festering wounds; the victim stood planted squarely on its torn fore- flippers, with head erect and thrown back upon its shoulders ; its eyes were closed, and it gently swayed its sore neck and shoulders in a sort of troubled, painful day-dreaming or dozing. Like the fur-seal, the sea-lion never notices its wounds to nurse and lick them, as dogs do, or other carnivora; it never pays the slightest attention to them, no matter how grievously it may be injured. + This marked cowardice of the sea-lion was well noted by Steller, who speaks of it thus: ‘‘ Though the males have a terrible aspect, yet they take flight on the first appearance of man; and if surprised in their sleep, they are panic struck, sighing deeply, and in their attempt to escape get quite confused, tumble down, and tremble so much that they are scarcely able to move their limbs. If, however, reduced to extremity, they grow desperate, turn on their enemy with great fury and noise, and put even the most valiant to flight.”— Nor. Com. Acad. Sci. Petropol., tome ii, 1749. | Often, when the fur-seal and sea-lion bulls haul up in the beginning of the season, examples among them which are inordinately fat will be seen; their extra avoirdupois renders them very conspicuous, even among large gatherings of their kind; they seem to exhibit a sense of self-oppression then, quite as marked as is that subsequent air of depression worn when, later, they have starved out this load of surplus blubber, and are shambling back to the sea, for recuperation and rest. I thought over and devised many plans to kill and weigh entire one of these unusually heavy bulls; tat, they all failed, because I did not have the time to spare from so many other observations pressing and necessary to be made at that season, if made at all during the year. The united effort of five or six men, aided by the mule and cart at St. Paul, would solve the problem, doubtless, almost any day they set avout . 86 _ THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. . ORGANIZATION OF SEA-LION ROOKERIES.—The sea-lion rookery will be found to consist of about ten to fifteen females to every male. The females, in landing, seem to be influenced by no preference for one male above another, but are actuated solely to come ashore at a suitable place, where, soon after landing, they are to bring forth their young. The cow seems at all times to have the utmost freedom in moving from place to place; and also often to start with its young— which is noteworthy, inasmuch as I never saw it among the fur-seals—picking the pup up by the nape and carrying it to the water to play with it for short spells in the surf-wash. The pup sea-lions are by no means helpless when they are born; when they first come into the world their eyes are promptly opened wide and clear; they stand up quite free and strong on their odd flipper-feet, and commence at once, in their frequent intervals of wakefulness, to crawl over bowlders and the sand, to paddle in the surf, and to roar huskily and shrilly at their parents. GROWTH OF YOUNG SEA-LIONS.—They are fed upon the richest of rich milk, at irregular and somewhat lengthy periods; regaled in this manner, the young sea-lion grows with surprising rapidity, so much so that its weight, of 9 or 12 pounds at birth, is increased to 75 or 90, in less than four months thereafter. By this time, also, it has shed its natal coat and teeth; it has grown a strong mustache, and has become a facile swimmer and expert fisherman, though at first it was one of the most clumsy, yet never so helpless as the fur-seal. The liquid, pearly- "blue eye of the little fellow is soon changed into the sinister expression of adolescence, when it has rounded its ssecond year. It appears to grow up unnoticed by its grim-looking parents, though the maternal attention is more evident, but still scant, indeed, when contrasted with the love evinced by cat or dog for its offspring. VISITING THE TOLSTOI ROOKERY.—At the east end of St. George island, just to the southward of Tolstoi ‘Mees, is one of the finest sea-lion rookeries on the islands, or, perhaps, in the world. It lies at the base of a frowning wall of precipitous cliffs, the mural walls sheer aloft 400 and 500 feet as they overhang the sea. Here beneath, on a rocky stretch of beach some 30 or 40 feet wide. at high-water mark, stowed thickly side by side, end to end, and crosswise for a distance of half a mile up and down the coast, are four or five thousand sea-lions of all sizes and both sexes; and here they will be found every summer, secure from the approach of enemies by land. Inasmuch as they rest there under the cliffs, they cannot be practically approached and driven, as their kind are by the Aleuts, from their more accessible breeding-haunts at Northeast point, St. Paul island.* By paying attention to the direction of the wind, the observer can descend at intervals from the heights above, unheeded and unsuspected by them, to within a stone’s throw of their tawny forms; where you may notice their thousand and one unconstrained and peculiar maneuvers, which would be interrupted at once by a tumultuous and universal rush for the water should you make yourself known. You will be impressed, first, by their excessive restlessness; they are ever twisting and turning, coiling and uncoiling themselves over the rocks; now stretched out prone in slumber, the next minute up and moving. The roar of one is instantly caught up by another, so that the ageregate sound, as it rises and falls from this rookery, reverberating along the bluffs at irregular though close intervals, can only be compared, in my mind, to the hoarse sound of a tempest as it howls through the rigging of a ship, or sighs through the branches of a forest growth. The voice of the northern sea-lion, Humetopias, is confined to either a deep, resonant roar, or a low, muttering growl; not only to the males alone is this monotone peculiar, but also to the females and the young. It does not have that striking flexibility of the Callorhinus, and in this respect their vocal organization is very marked and different from tnat of the fur-seal. I might say, further, that the pups are exceedingly playful, but, unlike the noisy “ kotickie”, they are almost silent; when they utter a sound it is a short, sharp, querulous growling. it, early in May. Some of these super-fleshy fur-seal males look as though they were from 600 to 700 pounds weight, while I have seen several sea-lion bulls that actually appeared equal to turning the scales at 1,500 pounds avoirdupois. Those fur-seals which I did weighin July, 1873, and September, 1872, were not at all extra fleshy, and consequently do not give a fair return for these examples above referred to. *Tt will be noticed that I have made no especial spacing or reservation on my maps for the sea-lions at Northeast point, on St. Paul island, but have included them solidly within the lines of the breeding fur-seals. The reason why I omit these lines of exact limitation is due to the fact that they laid in, along the water’s edge at intervals, so closely with the fur-seals, and in such apparent good fellowship, that I could not observe any sharp demarkation between them; except only the irregular, confused patches of their bright golden coats in contrast with the dull rusty dress of Callorhinus. The Humetopias, here, where it was breeding, never lay far back from the surf, but always close to its high-water washings; in this method, I should judge, about 12,000 to 15,000 of them occupy little strips of Novastoshnah and Seevitchie Kammin; being the only rookery spots on the Pribyloy islands where they breed in close juxtaposition with the fur-seals. Then, there is a sea-lion rookery on St. George, all to itself, under the high mural walls just north of the Garden cove sand beech, where I estimate another 4,000 to 5,000 of these animals annually haul out and breed. Very likely my allowance of 12,000 to 15,000 sea-lions on St. Paul is too large, and 10,000 is a better figure of their numerical expression. My published estimates of 25,000 on the two islands, in 1874, I feel now are larger than the facts allow. As might be inferred, the sea-lions at Novastoshnah do not allow the fur-seals to disturb them, nor do they in turn ever appear to annoy or drive their physically weaker brethren; they seem to wear an air of perfect unconcern for each other; although the fur-seal bulls, I observed, were never caught lounging over the narrow littoral margins of the sea-lions’ breeding-grounds; but meekly bowed their heads and scuttled across, wholly beneath the notice of the huge ‘‘seevitchie”. Why the sea-lion should be relatively so seant in numbers over the great extent of the large geographical area wherein it is found, is perplexing to me, for, it is physically as active and much more powerful than the fur-seal; perhaps, this increased bulk of body deters it from feeding as successfully as its more lithesome cousin does. I should estimate that the full-grown sea-lion bull, after it leaves the islands at the end of the breeding-season, until it reappears for the next, would require at least 100 pounds of fish per diem, while the females and younger males would crave and consume from 40 to 60 pounds of such food every twenty-four hours. at en ees *(Suapiey s,preMpoom) ‘SANW1SI-1TvaS—udeasbouopw ‘qeo ‘oostoursy weg ye ‘Suypieed v pure ‘ayeurey y]Upe ue “aTeut plo-1e9A-anoj B Jo Satpnys-9stT S,royyNe 9y,T, (idseTt1p snydojez) ‘NOIT-V4S HOV1Id AHL “Sure A TIAX 981d THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 87 THE YOUNG PROMPTLY DESERTED.—You will notice that if you disturb and drive off any portion of the rookery, by walking up in plain sight, those nearest to you will take to the water, instantly swim out toa distance of fifty yards or so, leaving their pups behind, helplessly sprawled around and about the rocks at your feet. Huddled up all together in the water in two or three packs or squads, the startled parents hold their heads and necks high out of the sea, peering keenly at you, and all roaring in an incessant concert, making an orchestra to which those deep sonorous tones of the organ in that great Mormon tabernacle, at Salt Lake City, constitute the fittest and most adequate resemblance. MovVEMENTS WHEN UNDISTURBED ON ROOKERY.—You will witness an endless tide of these animals traveling to the water, and a steady stream of their kind coming out, if you but keep in retirement and do not disturb them. When they first issue from the surf they are a dark chocolate-brown and black, and glisten; but, as their coats dry off, the color becomes an iron-gray, passing into a bright golden rufous, which covers the entire body alike—shades of darker brown on the pectoral patches and sterno-pectoral region. After getting entirely dry, they seem to grow exceedingly uneasy, and act as tough oppressed by heat, until they plunge back into the sea, never staying out, as the fur-seal does, day after day and week after week. The females and the young males frolic in and out of the water, over rocks awash, inecssantly one with another, just as puppies play upon the geeen sward; and, when weary, stretch themselves out in any attitude that will fit the character of the rock, or the lava-shingle upon which they may happen to be resting; the movements of their supple spines, and ball-and-socket joint attachments, permit of the most extraordinary contortions of the trunk and limbs, all of which, no matter how distressing to your eyes, they seem actually to relish. But, the old battle-scarred bulls of the harem stand or lie at their positions day and night without leaving them, except to take a short bath when the coast is clear, until the end of the season. MErHopd OF SWIMMING.—When swimming, the sea-lion only lifts its head above the surface long enough to take a deep breath, and then drops down a few feet below, and propels itself, for about ten or fifteen minutes, like a cigar-steamer, at the rate of 6 or 7 knots, if undisturbed; but, if chased or alarmed, it seems fairly to fly under water, and can easily maintain for a long time a speed of 14 or 15 miles per hour. Like the fur-seal, its propulsion through the water is the work entirely of the powerful fore-flippers, which are simultaneously struck out, both together, and back against the water, feathering forward again to repeat, while the hind-flippers are simply used as a rudder oar in deflecting the ever-varying swift and abrupt course of the animal. On land the hind-flippers are employed just as a dog does his feet in scratching fleas—the long peculiar toe-nails thereof seeming to reach and comb the spots affected by vermin, which annoys them, as it does the fur-seal fo a great extent, and causes them both to enjoy a protracted scratching. Again, both genera, Callorhinus and Eumetopias, are happiest when the Sure is strongest and wildest; just in proportion to the fury of a gale, so much the greater joy and animation of these animals. They delight in ae on the crests of each dissolving breaker up to the moment when it fairly foams over the iron-bound rocks; at that instant they disappear like phantoms beneath the creamy surge to reappear on the crown of the next mighty billow. When landing, they always ride on the surf, so to speak, to the objective point, and it is marvelous to see with what remarkable agility they will worm themselves up steep, rocky landings, having an inclination greater than 45°, to those bluff tops above, which have an almost perpendicular drop to water. THE VALUE OF THE SEA-LION, COMMERCIALLY: SHEDDING.—As the sea-lion is without fur, its skin has little or no commercial value.* The hair is short, an inch to an inch and a half in length, being longest over the nape of the neck; straight, and somewhat coarse, varying in color as the season comes and goes. For instance, when the Eumetopias makes its first appearance’ in the spring and dries out after landing, it has then a light brownish rufous-tint, with darker shades back and under the fore-flippers and on the abdomen; by the expiration of a month or six weeks, about the 15th of June generally, this coat will then be weathered into a glossy rufous, or ocher; and this is soon ‘before shedding, which sets in by the middle of August, or a little earlier. After the new coat has fairly grown, and just before the animal leaves the island for the sea in November, it is a light sepia or vandyke brown, with deeper shades, almost black, upon the abdomen. The cows after shedding never color up so darkly as the bulls; but when they come back to the land next year they return identically the same in tinting; so that the eye, in glancing over a sea-lion rookery during June and July, cannot discern any dissimilarity in color, at all noteworthy, existing between the coats of the bulls and the cows; and also the young males and yearlings appear in the same golden-brown and ocher, with here and there an animal which is noted as being spotted somewhat like a leopard, the yellow rufous-ground predominating, with patches of dark-brown, blotched, and mottled irregularly * The sea-lion and hair-seals of Bering sea, having no commercial value in the eyes of civilized men, have not been subjects of interest enough to the pioneers of those waters for mention in particular; such record, for instance, as that given of the walrus, the sea-otter, and the fur-seal. Steller was the first to draw the line clearly between them and ae in general, especially defining their separation from the fur-seal ; still, his description is far from being definite or satisfactory in the light of our present knowledge of the animal. In the South Pacific and Atlantic the sea-lion has been curiously confounded by many of the earliest writers with the sea-elephant, Macrorhinus leoninus, and its reference is inextricably entangled with the fur-seal at the Falklands, Kerguelen’s Land, and the Crozettes. The proboscidean seal, however, seems to be the only pinniped which visits the Antarctic continent; but that is a mere inference of mine, because so little is ae of those ice-bound coasts, and Wilkes, who gives the only record made of the subject, saw no other animal there save this one. 88 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. : interspersed over the anterior regions down to those posterior. I have never seen any of the old bulls or cows thus mottled, and this is likely due to some irregularity of shedding in the younger animals; for I have not noticed it early in the season, and it seems to fairly fade away so as not to be discerned on the same animal at the close of its summer solstice. Many of the old bulls have a grizzled or “salt and pepper” look during the shedding period, which is from the 10th of August up to the 10th or 20th of November. The pups, when born, are a rich dark-chestnut brown; this coat they shed in October, and take one much lighter in its stead; still darker, however, than their parents. : ARRIVAL Al AND DEPARTURE FROM THE PRIBYLOY ISLANDS.—The time of arrival at, stay on, and departure from, the islands, is about the same as that which I have recorded as characteristic of the fur-seal; but, if the winter is an open, mild one, some of the sea-lions will frequently be seen about the shores during the whole year; and then the natives occasionally shoot them, long after the fur-seals have entirely disappeared. GREAT RANGE OF SEA-LION: IT IS NOT RESTRICTED TO THE SEAL-ISLANDS.—Again, it does not confine its landing to the Pribylov islands alone, as the fur-seal unquestionably does, with reference to such terrestrial location in our own country. On the contrary, it is a frequent visitor to almost all of the Aleutian islands, and ranges, as I have said before, over the mainland coast of Alaska, south of Bristol bay, and about the Siberian shores to the westward, throughout the Kuriles and the Japanese northern waters.* DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ZALOPHUS AND EUMETOPIAS.—When I first returned, in 1873, from the seal-islands, those authors, whose conclusions were accepted prior to my studies there, had agreed in declaring that the sea-lion, so common off the port of San Francisco, was the same animal also common in Alaska, and the Pribylov islands in especial; but my drawings from life, and studies, quickly pointed out the error, for it was seen that the creature most familiar to the Californians was an entirely different animal from my subject of study on the sealislands. In other words, while scattered examples of the Humetopias were, and are, unquestionably about and off the harbor of San Francisco, yet nine-tenths of the sea-lions there observed were a different animal— they were the Zalophus Californianus. This Zalophus is not much more than half the size of Humetopias, relatively ; it has the large, round, soft eye of the fur-seal, and the more attenuated Newfoundland-dog-like muzzle; and it never roars, but breaks out incessantly with a honk, honk, honking bark, or howl. No example of Zalophus has ever been observed in the waters of Bering sea, nor do I believe that it goes northward of Cape Flattery. EARLY DISPOSITION OF SEA-LIONS ON ST. GHORGE.—According to the natives of St. George, some fifty or sixty years ago the Humetopias held almost exclusive possession of the island, being there in great numbers, some two or three hundred thousand strong; and they aver, also, that the fur-seals then were barely permitted to land by these animals, and in no great number; therefore, they say, that they were directed by the Russians (that is, their ancestry) to hunt and worry the sea-lions off from the island, the result being that, as the sea-lions left, the fur-seals came, so that to-day they occupy nearly the same ground which the Huwmetopias alone covered . Sixty years ago. I call attention to this statement of the people because it is, or seems to be, corroborated in the notes of a French naturalist and traveler, who, in his description of the island of St. George, which he visited fifty years ago, makes substantially the same representation;+ but directly to the contrary, and showing how difficult it is to trace these faint records of the facts, I give the account as rendered by Bishop Veniaminov, which I translate and place in my appendix. The reader will notice that the Russian author differs entirely from the natives and the Frenchman; for, by his tabulation, almost as many fur-seals were taken on St. George during. she first years of occupation as were taken from St. Paul; and according to these figures, again continued, the *The winter of 1872~73, which I passed on the Pribyloy islands, was so rigorous that the shores were ice-bound and the sea covered with floes from January until the 28th of May; hence, I did not have an opportunity of seeing, for myself, whether the sea-lion remains about its breeding-grounds there throughout that period. The natives say that a few of them, when the sea is open, are always to be found, at any day during the winter and early spring, hauled out at Northeast point, on Otter island, and around St. George. They are, in my opinion, correct; and, being in such small numbers, the ‘“‘seevitchie” undoubtedly find enough subsistence in local crustacea, pisces, and other food. The natives, also, further stated that none of the sea-lions which we observe on the islands during the breeding-season leave the waters of Bering sea from the date of their birth to the time of their death. I am also inclined to agree with this proposition, as a general rule, fhough it would be strange if Pribylov sea-lions did not occasionally slip into the North Pacific, through and below the Aleutian chain, a short distance, even to traveling as far to the eastward as Cook’s inlet. Zumetopias Stelleri is well known to breed at many places between Attoo and Kadiak islands. I did not see it at St. Matthew, however, and I do not think it has ever bred there, although this island is only 200 miles away to the northward of the seal-islands—too many polar bears. Whalers speak of having shot it in the ice-packs in a much higher latitude, nevertheless, than that of St. Matthew. I can find no record of its breeding anywhere gn the islands or mainland coast of Alaska north of the 57th parallel or south of the 53d parallel of north latitude. It is common on the coast of Kamtchatka, the Kurile islands, and the Commander group, in Russian waters. There are vague and ill-digested rumors of finding Lumetopias on the shores of Prince of Wales and Queen Charlotte islands in breeding-rookeries; I doubt it. If it were so, it would be authoritatively known by this time. We do find it in small numbers on the Farralone rocks, off the entrance to the harbor of San Francisco, where it breeds in company with, though sexually apart from, an overwhelming majority of Zalophus; and it is creditably reported as breeding again to the southward, on the Santa Barbara, Guadaloupe, and other islands of southern and Lower California, consorting there, as on the Farralones, with an infinitely larger number of the lesser- 4odied Zalophus. ‘ t Choris: Voyage Pitioresque autour du Monde. ‘spuB[s] AOC[ACIdd “(Ide[[e31S SBIdo}euINW) SUOTI-BIS Hurinjdeo soAneNn ‘NAVIV AHL ONIONIadsS ‘SAN VISI-TyasS—udesrboucnt TAX 981d THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 89 catch never has been less than one-sixth of the number of the quota on the larger island. Thus the two authors seem to stand each other off, and I am thrown back to the ground itself for an answer, which I am inclined to believe will be correct, when I say that the island of St. George never was resorted to in any great numbers by the fur-seal, and that the sea-lion was the dominant animal there until disturbed and driven from its breeding- grounds by the people, who naturally sought to encourage its more valuable relative bw so doing, and made room, in this way, for it. 16. CAPTURE OF THE SEA-LION. THE DRIVING ON ST. PAuL.—The great intrinsic value to the domestic service of the Aleuts rendered by the flesh, fat, and sinews of this animal, together with its skin, arouses the natives of St. Paul and St. George, who annually make a drive of “seevitchie”, by which they capture, on the former island, two or three hundred, as the case may be. On St. George, driving is so much more difficult, owing to the character of the land itself, that very few are secured there; but, at St. Paul unexceptional advantages are found on Northeast point for the capture of these shy and wary brutes. The natives of St. Paul, therefore, are depended upon to secure the necessary number of skins required by both islands for their boats, and other purposes. This capture of the sea-lion is the only serious business which the people have on St. Paul; it is a labor of great care, industry, and some physical risk for the Aleutian hunters.* By reference to my sketch-map of Northeast point rookery, the observer will notice a peculiar neck or boot- shaped point, which I have designated as Sea Lion neck. This area is a spot upon which a large number of sea- lions are always to be found during the season. As they are so shy, and sure to take to water upon the appearance or presence of man near by, the natives adopt this plan: PREPARATIONS FOR THE DRIVE.—Along by the middle or end of September, as late sometimes as November, and after the fur-seal rookeries have broken up for the season, fifteen or twenty of the very best men in the village are selected, by one of their chiefs, for a sea-lion rendezvous at Northeast point; they go up there with their provisions, tea and sugar, and blankets, and make themselves at home in the barrabbora and houses, which I have located on the sketch-map of Novastoshnah, prepared to stay, if necessary, a month, or until they shall get the whole drove together of two or three hundred sea-lions. METHODS OF DRIVING SEA-LIONS.—The “ seevitchie”, as thé natives call these animals, cannot be approached successfully by daylight, so these hunters lie by, in this house of Webster’s, until a favorable night comes along— one in which the moon is partially obscured by drifting clouds, and the wind blows over them from the rookery where the sea-lions lie; such an opportunity being afforded, they step down to the beach at low water, and proceed to creep on all-fours over the surf-beaten sand and leant up to the dozing herd, and between it and the high- water mark where it rests. In this way, a small body of natives, crawling along in Indian file, may pass unnoticed by the sea-lion sentries, which doubtless, in the uncertain light see, but confound, the forms of their human enemies with those of seals. When the creeping Aleuts have all reached the strip of beach that is left bare by ebb-tide, which is between the water and the unsuspecting animals, at a given signal from their crawling leader they all at once leap to their feet, shout, yell, brandishing their arms, and firing off pistols, while the astonished and terrified lions roar and flounder in all directions. BEHAVIOR OF THE SEA-LIONS WHEN SURPRISED.—If, at the moment of surprise, the brutes are sleeping with their heads pointed toward the water, they rise up in fright and charge straight on in that way directly over the men themselves, but if their heads have been resting at this instant pointed landward, up they rise and follow that course just as desperately, and nothing will turn them either one way or the other; those sea-lions which charged for the water are lost, of course;+ but the natives promptly follow up the land-turned animal with a rare * A curious, though doubtless authentic, story was told me, in this connection, illustrative of the strength and energy of the sea-lion bull when at bay. Many years ago (1847), on St. Paul island, a drive of September sea-lions was brought down to the village in the usual style; but when the natives assembled to kill them, on account of the great scarcity, at that time, of powder on the island, it was voted best to lance the old males also, as well as the females, rather than shoot them in the customary style. The people had hardly set to work at the task when one of their number, a small, elderly, though tough, able-bodied Aleut, while thrusting his lance into the ‘‘life” of a large bull, was suddenly seen to fall on his back, directly under the huge brute’s head; instantly the powerful jaws of the ‘“‘seevitchie” closed upon the waistband, apparently, of the native, and, lifting the yelling man aloft, as a cat would a kitten, the sea-lion shook and threw him high into the air, away over the heads of his associates, who rushed up to the rescue, and quickly destroyed the animal by a dozen furious spear-thrusts, yet death did not loosen its clenched jaws, in which were the tattered fragments of Ivan’s clothing. tThe natives appreciate this peculiarity of the sea-lion very keenly, for good and sufficient cause, though none of them have ever been badly injured in driving, or ‘springing the alarm”. I camped with them for six successive nights in September, 1872, in order to witness the whole procedure. During the several drives made while I was with them, I saw but one exciting incident; everything went off in the orthodox manner, as described in the text above. The exceptional incident occurred during the first drive of the first night, and rendered the natives so cautious that it was not repeated. When the alarm was sprung, old Luka Mandrigan was leading the van, and at that moment, down upon him, despite his wildly gesticulating arms and vociferous yelling, came a squad of bull ‘‘seevitchic”. The native saw instantly that they were pointed for the water, and, in his sound sense, turned to run from under, his tarbosar slipped upon a slimy rock awash, he fell flat as a flounder, just as a dozen or more big sea-lions plunged over and on to his prostrate form in the shallow water. In less time than this can be written, the heavy pinnipeds had disappeared, while the bullet-like head of old Luka was quickly raised, and he trotted back to us with an alternation of mirth and chagrin in his voice; he was not hurt in the least. / 90 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. . combination of horrible noises and demoniacal gesticulations, until the first frenzied spurt and exertions of the terrified creatures so completely exhaust them that they fall panting, gasping, prone upon the earth, extended in spite of their huge bulk and powerful muscles, helpless, and at the mercy of their cunning captors; who, however, instead of slaying them as they lie, rudely rouse them up again, and urge the herd along to the house, in which they have been keeping this watch during the several days past. Tur “ CORRAL”.—Here, at this point, is a curious stage in the proceedings. The natives drive up to that ‘¢ Webster’s” house the 25 or 30 or 40 sea-lions, as the case may be, which they have just captured—they seldom get more at any one time—and keep them in a corral or pen right by the barrabbora, on the flattened surface of a sand- ridge, in the following comical manner: wher they have huddled up the “pod”, they thrust stakes down around it at intervals of 10 to 30 feet, to which strips of cotton cloth are fluttering as flags, and a line or two of sinew-rope, or thong of hide, is strung from pole to pole around the group, making a circular cage, as it were; within this flimsy circuit the stupid sea-lions are securely imprisoned ; and though they are incessantly watched by two or three men, the whole period of caging and penning which I observed, extending over nine or ten days and nights, passed with- out a single effort being made by the “‘seevitchie” to break out of their flimsy bonds; and it was passed by these animals not in stupid quiescence, but in alert watchfulness; writhing, twisting, turning one upon and over the other. By this method of procedure, after the lapse usually of two or three weeks, a succession of favorable nights will have occurred; and the natives secure their full quota, which, as I have said before, is expressed by a herd of two or three hundred of these animals. PREPARATION AND METHOD OF DRIVING TO THE VILLAGE.—The complement filled, the natives prepare to drive their herd back to the village, over the grassy and mossy uplands and intervening stretches of sand- dune tracts, fully eleven miles, preferring to take the trouble of prodding the clumsy brutes, wayward and obstinate as they are, rather than to pack their heavy hides in and out of boats; making, in this way, each sea-lion — carry its own skin and blubber down to the doors of their houses in the village. If the weather is normally wet and cold, this drive, or caravan of sea-lions, can be driven to the point of destination in tive or six days; but, should it be dry and warmer than usual, three weeks, and even longer, will elapse before the circuit is traversed. When the drive is started the natives gather around the herd on all sides, save the opening which they leave pointing to the direction in which they desire the animals to travel; and, in this manner they escort and urge the ‘ seevitchie” on to their final resting and slaughter near the village. The young lions and the females being much lighter than the males, less laden with fat or blubber, take the lead; for they travel twice and thrice as easy and as fast as the old males; which, by reason of their immense avoirdupois, are incapable of moving ahead more than a few rods at a time, when they are completely checked by sheer loss of breath, though the vanguard of the females allures them strongly on; but, when an old sea-lion feels his wind coming short, he is sure to stop, sullenly and surlily turning upon the drivers, not to move again until his lungs are clear. Tn this method and manner of conduction the natives stretch the herd out in extended file, or, as a caravan, over the line of march, and, as the old bulls pause to savagely survey the field and catch their breath, showing their wicked teeth, the drivers have to exercise every art and all their ingenuity in arousing them to fresh efforts. This they do by clapping boards and bones together, firing fusees, and waving flags; and, of late, and best of all, the blue gingham umbrella repeatedly opened and closed in the face of an old bull has been a more effective starter than all the other known artifices or savage expedients of the natives.* * The curious behavior of the sea-lions in the Big lake, when they are en route and driven from Noyastoshnah to the village, deserves mention. After the drove gets over the sand-dunes and beach between Webster’s house and the extreme northeastern head of the lake, a halt is called and the drove ‘‘penned” on the bank there; then, when the sea-lions are well rested, they are started up, and pell-mell into the water; two natives, in a bidarka, keep them from turning out from shore into the broad bosom of Meesulkmahnee, while another bidarka paddles in their rear and follows their swift passage right down the eastern shore; in this method of procedure, the drive carries itself nearly two miles by water in less than twenty minutes from the time the sea-lions are first turned in, at the north end, to the moment when they are driven out at the southeastern elbow of the Big pond. The shallowness of the water here accounts probably for the strange failure of the sea-lions to regain their liberty, and so retards their swimming as to enable the bidarka, with two men, to keep abreast of their leaders easily, as they plunge ahead ; and, ‘‘as one goes, so go all sheep,” it is not necessary to pay attention to those which straggle behind in the wake; they are stirred up by the second bidarka, and none make the least attempt to diverge from the track which the swifter mark out in advance; if they did, they could escape ‘“‘scot-free” in any one of the twenty minutes of this aquatic passage. : By consulting the map of St. Paul, it will be observed that in a direct line between the village and Northeast point there are quite a number of small lakes, including this large one of Meesulkmahnee; into all of these ponds the sea-lion drove is successively driven; this interposition of fresh water at such frequent intervals serves to shorten the time of the journey fully ten days in warmish weather, and at least four or five under the best of climatic conditions. This track between Webster's house and the village killing-gréunds is strewn with the bones of Humetopias. They will drop in their tracks, now and then, even when carefully driven, from cerebral or spinal congestion principally ; and when they are hurried the mortality en route is very great. The natives when driving them, keep them going day and night alike, but give them frequent resting spells after every spurt ahead. The old bulls flounder along for a hundred yards or so, then sullenly halt to regain breath, five or ten minutes being allowed them, then they are stirred up again, and so on, hour after hour, until the tedious transit is completed. The younger sea-lions, and the cows which are in the drove, carry themselves easily far ahead of the bulls, and being thus always in the van, serve unconsciously to stimulate and coax the heavy males to travel. Otherwise, I do not believe that a band of old bulls, exclusively, could be driven down over this long road successfully. ‘puBIs] Ned 4S “UIOd {SBeUJON “ITH ssoap depun ‘Nad NOIT-VHS AHL SR gh STP = ‘SGNV1ISI-1VaS—udesbouopy ‘fasnoy $.deisqevyA ieeu eioqedieg 9} 78 SUOT[-B95 HuI[[eldod SOATPEN er nt as 2 ASS Se SaiN as sae firs Se Se Seg, p Ss 2 i a ‘ 5 rf ra a 2 wr LYN — d Vegi SI = Is a A : isi Nee Saye U4 XLT LA 11 See Vee Yo iret Ay “XIX 978Id THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 91 ARRIVAL OF THE DRIVE AT THE VILLAGE.—The procession of sea-lions managed in this strange manner day and night—for the natives never let up—is finally brought to rest within a stone’s throw of the village, which has pleasurably anticipated, for days, and for weeks, its arrival, and rejoices in its appearance. The men get out their old rifles and large sea-lion lances, and sharpen their knives, while the women look well to their oil-pouches, and repair to the field of slaughter with meat-baskets on their heads. MANNER IN WHICH THE KILLING IS CONDUCTED.—No attempt is made, even by the boldest Aleut, to destroy an old bull sea-lion by spearing the enraged and powerful beast, which, now familiar with man and conscious as it were of his puny strength, would seize the lance between its jaws and shake it from the hands of the stoutest one in a moment. Recourse is had to the rifle. The herd is started up the sloping flanks of the Black Bluff hill- side; the females speedily take the front, while the old males hang behind. Then the marksmen, walking up to within a few paces of each animal, deliberately draw their sights upon their heads and shoot them just between the eye and the ear. The old males thus destroyed, the cows and females are in turn surrounded by the natives, who, dropping their rifles, thrust the heavy iron lances into their trembling bodies at a point behind the fore-flip- pers, touching the heart with a single lunge. It is an unparalleled spectacle, dreadfully cruel and bloody.* 17. ECONOMIC USES OF THE SEA-LION. HIGH APPRECIATION OF THE SEA-LION BY THE ALEUTS.—Although the sea-lion has little or no commercial value for us, yet to the service of the natives themselves, who live all along the Bering sea coast of Alaska, Kamtchatka, and the Kuriles, it is invaluable; they set great store by it. It supplies them with its hide, moustaches, flesh, fat, sinews, and intestines, which they make up into as many necessary garments, dishes, ete. They have abundant reason to treasure its skin highly, for it is the covering to their neat bidarkies and bidarrahs, the former being the small kyak of Bering sea, while the latter is a boat of all work, exploration, and transportation. These skins are unhaired by sweating in a pile; then they are deftly sewed and carefully stretched over a light keel and frame of wood, making a perfectly water-tight boat that will stand, uninjured, the softening influence of water for a day or two at a time, if properly air-dried and oiled. After being used during the day, these skin boats are always drawn out on the beach, turned bottom-side up and air-dried during the night; in this way made ready for employment again on the morrow. + VALUE OF THE INTESTINES.—A peculiar value is attached to the intestines of the sea-lion, which, after skinning, are distended with air and allowed to dry in that shape; then they are cut into ribbons and sewed strongly *This surrounding of the cows, is, perhaps, the strangest procedure on the islands. To fully appreciate the subject, the reader must first call to his mind’s eye the fact that these female sea-lions, though small beside the males, are yet large animals; seven and eight feet long, and weighing, each, as much as any four or five average men. But, in spite of their strength and agility, fifteen or twenty Aleuts, with a rough, iron-tipped lance in their hands, will surround a drove of 50 or 150 of them by forming a noisy, gesticulating circle, gradually closing up, man to man, until the sea-lions are literally piled in a writhing, squirming, struggling mass, one above the other, three or ‘four deep, heads, flippers, bellies, backs all so woven and interwoyen in this panic-stricken heap of terrified creatures, that it defies adequate description. The natives spear the cows on top, which, as they sink in death, are mounted in turn by the live animals underneath; these meet the deadly lance, in order, and so on until the whole herd is quiet and stilled in the fatal ebbing of their heart’s blood. +When slowly sketching, by measurements, the outlines of a fine adult bull sea-lion which the ball from Booterin’s rifle had just destroyed, an old ‘‘starooka” came up abruptly ; not seeming to see me, she deliberately threw down a large, greasy, skin meat-bag, and whipping out a knife, went to work on my specimen. Curiosity prompted me to keep still in spite of the first sensations of annoyance, 80 that I might watch her choice and use of the animal’s carcass. She first removed the skin, being actively aided in this operation by an uncouth boy; she then cut off the palms to both fore-flippers; the boy at the same time pulled out the moustache bristles; she then cut out its gullet, from the glottis to its junction with the stomach, carefully divested it of all fleshy attachments, and fat; she then cut out the stomach itself, and turned it inside out, carelessly seraping the gastric walls free of copious biliary secretions, the inevitable bunch of ascaris; she then told the boy to take hold of the duodenum end of the small intestine, and as he walked away with it she rapidly cleared it of its attachments, so that it was thus uncoiled to its full length of at least 60 feet; then she severed it, and then it was recoiled by the ‘‘melchiska”, and laid up with the other members just removed, except the skin, which she had nothing more to do with. She then cut out the liver and ate several large pieces of that workhouse of the blood before dropping it into the meat-pouch. She then raked up several handfuls of the “‘leaf-lard”, or hard, white fat that is found in moderate quantity around the viscera of all these pinnipeds, which she also dumped into the flesh-bag; she then drew her knife through the large heart, but djd not touch it otherwise, looking at it intently, however, as it still quivered in unison with the warm flesh of the whole carcass. She and the boy then poked their fingers into the tumid lobes of the immense lungs, cutting out portions of them only, which were also put into the grimy pouch aforesaid; then she secured the gall-bladder and slipped it into a small yeast-powder tin, which was produced by the urchin; then she finished her economical dissection by cutting the sinews out of the back in unbroken bulk from the cervical vertebra to the sacrum; all these were stuffed into that skin bag, which she threw on her back and supported it by a band over her head; she then trudged back to the barrabkie from whence she sallied a short hour ago, like an old vulture to the slaughter; she made the following disposition ofits contents: The palms were used to sole a pair of tarbosars, or native boots, of which, the uppers and knee tops were made of the gullets— one sea-lion gullet to each boot top; the stomach was carefully blown up, and left to dry on the barrabkie roof, eventually to be filled with oil rendered from sea-lion or fur-seal blubber. The small intestine was carefully injected with water and cleansed, then distended with air, and pegged out between two stakes, 60 feet apart, with little crogs-slats here and there between to keep it clear of the ground. When it is thoroughly dry, it is ripped up ina straight line with its length and pressed out into a broad band of parchment gut, which she cuts up and uses in making a water-proof “‘kamlaikie”, sewing it with those sinews taken from the back. The liver, leaf-lard, and lobes of the lungs were eaten without further cooking, and the little gall-bag was for some use in poulticing a scrofulous sore. The moustache- 92 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. together into that most characteristic water-proof garment of the world, known as the “ kamlaika”;* which, while being fully as water-proof as India rubber, has far greater strength, and is never affected by grease and oil. Itis also transparent in its fitting over dark clothes. The sea-lions’ throats are served in a similar manner, and, when cured, are made into boot tops, which are in turn soled by the tough skin that composes the palms of this animal’s fore-flippers. STOMACH-WALLS USED AS OIL-POUCHES.—Around the natives’ houses, on St. Paul and St. George, constantly appear curious objects which, to the unaccustomed eye, resemble overgrown gourds or enormous calabashes with attennated necks; an examination proves them to be the dried, distended stomach-walls of the sea-lion, filled with its oil; which, unlike the offensive blubber of the fur-seal, boils out clear and inodorous from its fat. The flesh of an old sea-lion, while not very palatable, is tasteless and dry; but the meat of a yearling is very much like veal, and when properly cooked I think it is just as good; but the superiority of the sea-lion meat over that of the fur-seai is decidedly marked. It requires some skill, in the cuisine, ere sausage and steaks of the Callorhinus are accepted on the table; while it does not, however, require much art, experience, or patience for the cook to serve up the juicy ribs of a young sea-lion so that the most fastidious palate will fail to relish it. CARING FOR THE FLESH.—The carcass of the sea-lion, after it is stripped of its hide, and disemboweled, is hung up in cool weather by its hiad-flippers, over a rude wooden frame or “ labaas”, as the natives call it, where, together with many more bodies of fur-seals treated in the same manner, it serves from November until the following season of May, as the meat-house of the Aleut on St. Paul and St. George. Exposed in this manner to the open weather, the natives keep their sea]-meat almost any length of time, in winter, for use; and, like our old duck and bird hunters, they say they prefer to have ‘the meat tainted rather than fresh, declaring that it is most tender and toothsome when decidedly ‘“ loud”. CHINESE DEMAND FOR WHISKERS.—The tough, elastic moustache bristles of the sea-lion are objects of great commercial activity by the Chinese, who prize them highly for pickers to their opium pipes, and several ceremonies peculiar to their joss houses. These lip bristles of the fur-seal are usually too small and too elastic for this service. The natives, however, always carefully pluck them out of the Humetopias, and get their full value in exchange. DIET OF THE SEA-LION.—The sea-lion also, as in the case of the fur-seal, is a fish-eater, pure and simple, though he, like the latter, occasionally varies his diet by consuming a limited amount of juicy sea-weed fronds, and tender marine crustaceans; but he hunts no animal whatever for food, nor does he ever molest, up here, the sea-fowl that incessantly hovers over his head, or sits in flocks without fear on the surface of the waters around him. He, like the Callorhinus, is, without question, a mighty fisherman, familiar with every submarine haunt of his piscatorial . prey; and, like his cousin, rejects the heads of all those fish which have hard horny mouths, or are filled with teeth or bony plates.t G. THE WALRUS OF BERING SEA (ODOBANUS OBESUS). 18. LIFE-HISTORY OF THE WALRUS. VOLUMINOUS WRITINGS RELATIVE TO THE WALRUS.—When I first set out for the seal-islands, from the Smithsonian Institution, in 1872, I fancied that, as far as the walrus was concerned, I should have nothing to learn, because of the literature on that subject which I had read, from the Congressional Library, viz: The curious histories written by Olaus Magnus, in 1555; by Gesner, in 1558; by Martens, in 1675; by Pennant, in 1781-1792; by Buffon, in 1785; and by Cuvier, in 1816; together with an almost innumerable list of authors who have since contributed papers on the walrus and its character to nearly all the learned associations of the world. bristles were a yenture of the boy, who gathers all that he can, then sends them to San Francisco, where they find a ready sale to the Chinese, who pay about one cent apiece for them. When the natives cut up a sea-lion carcass, or one of a fur-seal, on the killing-grounds for meaty, they take only the hams and the loins. Later in the season they eat the entire carcass, which they hang up by the hind-flippers on a “laabas” by their houses. *The Aleutian name for this garment is unpronounceable in our language, and equally so in the more flexible Russian; hence the Alaskan “‘kamlailka,” derived from the Siberian ‘‘kamliia.” That is made of tanned reindeer skin, unhaired, and smoked by larch bark until it is colored a saffron yellow; and is worn over the reindeer skin undershirt, which has the hair next to the owner's skin, and the obverse side stained red by a decoction of alder bark. The kamliiia is closed behind and before, and a hood, fastened to the back of the neck, is drawn over the head, when leaving shelter; so is the Aleutian kamlaika; only the one of Kolyma is used to keep out piercing dry cold, while the garment of the Bering sea is a perfect water repellant. + Many authorities, who are quoted in regard to the habits of the hair-seals and southern sea-lions, speak with much fine detail of having witnessed the capture of sea-fowl by Phocide@ and Otariidew. To this point of inquiry on the Pribylov islands, I gave continued close attention; because, off and around all of the rookeries large flocks of auks, arries, gulls, shags, and choochkies were swimming upon the water, and shifting thereupon incessantly, day and night, throughout the late spring, summer, and early fall. During the tour seasons of my observation I never saw the slightest motion made by a fur-seal or sea-lion, a hair-seal, or a walrus toward intentionally disturbing a single bird, much less of capturing and eating it.. Had these seals any appetite for sea-fowl, this craving could have been abundantly satisfied at the expense of absolutely no effort on their part. That none of these animals have any taste for water-birds I am thoroughly assured. ‘soTBeul plo eu}? Huroous "SMOOD NOIIT-V4S FHL ONIAVAdS a“ Pw shereCe < e eV SE VO GE, 7, se . GUNS - _ ft Vd SoM . y ~ , i ee oe S = gt = Uf eo, om } a7 . ~~) MZ ns IN SANvV1SI-Tvas—udesbou0w ‘jUIOd 1SBEYJION UOdJ OACAP UOTI-BES 944 Huldd SeATIEN ite > y yin bird ‘sr¥e\ys VIO PunponS = Uda ASA Re " \ xXx e18Id THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 93 With this imposing list of authorities in my mind, I thought I had reason to believe that there was nothing about this pinniped which I should find new, or even interesting to science. THE WALRUS OF BERING SEA.—When, therefore, looking for the first time upon the walrus of Bering sea, judge of my astonishment as I beheld the animai before me. It was a new species; it was a new creature, or all that had been written by five hundred authors in regard to the appearance and behavior of its Atlantic cousin was in error. The natives who accompanied me were hurriedly summoned to my side, called from their eager task of picking up birds’ eggs. ‘Are these walrus sick?” said I. They looked at me in astonishment; “No, they are not.” ‘Do they always look like that?” ‘Serovnah,”* was the answer. Such was my introduction to Rosmarus areticus (Pallas), and the occasion of my describing it in 1873, for the first time, as the walrus of Bering sea—a distinct and separate animal, specifically, from its congener of the North Atlantic. Odobanus rosmarus (Allen).t WALRUS ON THE PRIBYLOV ISLANDS.—In early days, when the Pribylov islands were first occupied by the Russians, report has it that large numbers of these creatures frequented the entire coast line of St. Paul island, and many were found around St. George; but, being relatively more timid than the sea-lion in respect to the presence of man, they rapidly disappeared as he took possession of the land; the disappearance, however, was not total— afew of them every year were and can now be observed upon that little rocky islet, lying six miles to the southeast of the Northeast point of St. Paul island, owing to its comparative isolation; since the natives only go there once a year, and then only for a few days during the egging season. SELECTION OF LANDINGS BY WALRUS HERDS.—The walrus rests upon the low rocky tables characteristic of this place, without being disturbed; hence the locality afforded me a particularly pleasant and advantageous opportunity of minutely observing these animals. My observations, perhaps, would not have passed over a few moments of general notice, had I found fhe picture presented by them such as I had drawn in my mind from the descriptions of the army of writers cited above; the contrary, however, stamping itself so suddenly and decidedly upon my eye, set me to work with pen and brush in noting and portraying the extraordinary brutes, as they lay grunting and bellowing, unconscious of my presence, and not ten feet from the ledge upon which I sat.§ LIFE-STUDIES OF THE HERD.—Sitting as I did to the leeward of them, a strong wind blowing at the time from seaward, which, ever and anon, fairly covered many of them with the foaming surf-spray, they took no notice of me during the three or more hours of my study. I was first surprised at observing the raw, naked appearance of the * Just the same. + Allen, in reviewing the history of this species, cites the hesitating opinions of Pennant, in 1792; of Shaw, in 1800; of F. Cuvier, in 1825; of Leidy, in 1860, all of whom suggest the specific distinctness of the Bering sea walrus, but give their ideas clouded by expressed hints or mental reservations. He shows, however, that Illiger, in 1811, formally recognized three varieties, but that this author gives nowhere his reasons for so doing; he named them Zrichecus rosmarus for the North Atlantic, and T. obesus and T. divergens for the Bering sea region and waters north of the straits thereof. Then Allen says, page 21, ‘‘I have met with nothing further touching this subject prior to Mr. H. W. Elliott’s report on the seal-islands of Alaska, published in 1873, and he quotes it freely. Professor Allen has, however, done the osteological part of the work so well in his History of North American Pinnipeds, that now I deem it finished. While Allen agrees with me finally in my early determination of the Bering sea walrus as a distinct species from that of the Atlantic, he seems to base all of his belief upon the osteological differentiation between them. I have had my faith in that one line of evidence as to genera and species, so sadly shaken by the amazing asymmetry and differences in the skulls and skeletons of the fur-seal which are bleaching ont here side by side, thousands and tens of thousands of them, that I feel better satisfied with the characteristic external features of the pinnipeds, which are really more fixed and exact among the hundreds of thousands on the Pribyloy islands. Perhaps ten thousand skulls of Odobanus obesus would show a great number of examples which could not, alone by themselves, be separated from types of O. rosmarus. From my inspection of the wide range of variation presented in a large series of Callorhinus and Eumetopias skulls, I do not have any hesitation in saying so. + As to the number of walrus on the Pribylov islands in prehistoric time, and when the Russians first took possession of the same, 786-1787, I have not been able to find any record of the least authentic value’ Beyond the general legend of the natives that in olden times the “ morsjee” were wont to haul in considerable number at Novashtoshnah and over the entire extent of the north and south shores of St. Paul, while herds were also common under the precipitous sea-walls of St. George. Gavrila Sarietschev, one of the several imperial agents commissioned at intervals to examine into the affairs of the old Russian American Fur Company, in the details of his report made in December, 1805, incidentally states, speaking of the walrus, that while they had abandoned the Pribylov islands then, yet, formerly they were there in such numbers that 23,000 pounds of their teeth (tusks) were obtained in asingle year; as the average weight of well assorted walrus ivory is about 8 pounds to the head, of each animal, this memorandum of the agent shows that between 3,500 and 4,000 walrus were taken then. From the quantity of old bones of Rosmarii which are constantly covered and uncovered by the caprice of the wind at Nahsayvernia and Novastoshnah, I should judge the Russian officer was correct. § These favored basaltic tables are also commented upon in similar connection by an old writer in 1775, Shuldham, who calls them “echouries”; he is describing the Atlantic walrus as it appears at the Magdalen islands: ‘‘The echouries are formed principally by nature, being a gradual slope of soft rock, with which the Magdalen islands abound, about 80 to 100 yards wide at the water side, and spreading so as to contain, near the summit, a very considerable nnmber.” The tables at Walrus island and those at Southwest point, are very much less in area than those described by Shuldham, and are a small series of low, saw-tooth jetties of the harder basalt washed jn relief, from a tufa matrix; there is no room to the landward of them for many walruses to lie upon. The Odobenus does not like to haul up on loose orshingly shores, because it has the greatest difficulty in getting a solid hold for its fore-flippers with which to pry up and ahead its huge, clumsy body. When it hauls on a sand beach, it never attempts to crawl out to the dry region back of the surf, but lies just awash, at high water. In this fashion they used to rest all along the sand reaches of St. Paul prior to the Russian advent in 1786-1787; and when Shuldham was inditing his letters on the habits of Rosmarus, Odobenus was then lying out in full force and great physical peace on the Pribyloy islands. J4 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. \ hide, a skin covered with a multitude of pustular looking warts and large boils or pimples, without hair or fur, save scattered and almost invisible hairs; the skin wrinkled in deep, flabby seam-folds, and marked by dark-red venous lines, which showed out in strong contrast through the thicker and thinner yellowish-brown cuticle, that in turn seemed to be scaling off in places as if with leprosy; indeed, a fair expression of this walrus-hide complexion, if I may use the term, can be understood by the.inspection of those human countenances in the streets and on the highways of our cities which are designated as the faces of “bloats”. The forms of Rosmarus struck my eye at first in the most unpleasant manner, and the longer I looked at them the more heightened was my disgust; for they resembled distorted, mortified, shapeless masses of flesh; the clusters of swollen watery pimples, which were of yellow parboiled flesh-color, and principally located over the shoulders, and around the necks, painfully suggested unwholesomeness. On examining the herd individually, and looking over perhaps 150 specimens directly beneath and within the purview of my observation, I noticed that there were no females among them; they were all males, and some of the younger ones had considerable hair, or enough of that close, short, brown coat to give a hairy tone to thei bodies—hence I believe that it is only the old, wholly matured males which offered to my eyes their bare ané loathsome nakedness. I observed, as they swam around, and before they landed, that they were clumsy in the water, not being able to swim at all like the Phocide and the Otaride; but their progress in the sea was wonderfully alert when brought into comparison with that terrestrial action of theirs; the immense bulk and weight of this walrus contrasted with the size and strength of its limbs, renders it simply impotent when hauled out of the water, and on the low rocky beaches or shelves upon which it rests. Like the seal, however, it swims entirely under water when traveling, but it does not rise, in my opinion, so frequently to take breath; when it does, it blows or snorts not unlike a whale. Often I have noticed this puffing snort of these animals, since the date of these observations on Walrus islet, when standing on the bluffs near the village of St. Paul and looking seaward ; on one cool, quiet morning in May especially, I followed with my eye a herd of walrus, tracing its progress some distance off and up along the east coast of the island very easily by the tiny jets of moisture or vapor from the confined breath, which the animals blew off as they rose to respire.* METHODS OF LANDING: CLUMSY EFFORTS.—In landing and climbing over the low, rocky shores at Morserovia,~ this animal is fairly as clumsy and almost as indolent as the sloth. A herd crowds up from the water, one after the other, in the most ungainly manner, accompanying their movements with low grunts and bellowings; the * Mariners, while coasting in the Arctic, have often been put on timely footing by the walrus fog-horn snorting and blowing when a ship dangerously sails silently in through dense fog toward land or ice-floes, upon which these animals may be resting; indeed, these uncouth monitors to this indistinct danger rise and bob under and around a vessel like so many gnomes or demons of fairy romance; and the sailors may well be pardoned for much of the strange yarning which they have given to the reading world respecting the sea-horse, during the last three centuries; but when we find Albert Magnus, and Gesner the sage, talking in the following extraordinary manner of the capture of Rosmarus, we are constrained to laugh heartily; especially do we so, because a more shy, timid brute than the walrus o= Bering sea never existed when he is hunted by man, unless it be the sea-otter. Says Gesner in 1558: “Therefore these fish called Rosmarii or Morsii, have heads fashioned like to an oxe, and a hairy skin, and hair growing as thick as straw or corn-reeds, that lie loose very largely. They will raise themselves with their teeth, as by ladders, to the very tops of rocks that they may feed upon the dewie grasse, or fresh water, and role themselves in it, and then go to the sea again, unless in the mean time they fall very fast asleep, and rest upon the rocks, for then the fishermen make all the haste they can and begin at the tail, and part the skin from the fat; and into this that is parted they put most strong cords, and fasten them on the rugged rocks or trees that are near; and then they throw stones at his head, out of a sling, to raise him, and they compel him to descend spoiled of the greatest part of his skin which is fastened to the ropes; he being thereby debilitated, fearful and half dead, he is made a rich prey, especially for his teeth, that are very pretious amongst the Scythians, the Muscovites, Russians and Tartars (as ivory amongst the Indians) by reason of its hardness, whiteness and ponderousnesse”. In spite of the many remarkable and well autheuticated stories printed as to the ferocity of the Atlantic walrus when hunted, it can be safely said that no boat has ever been assailed by the Alaskan species, which is as large if not larger, and in every respect quite as able- bodied; the Eskimo capture them without danger or difficulty—mere child’s play or woman’s work—spearing and lancing. By spearing, a line of walrus hide is made fast to the plethoric body of Rosmarus, and when it has expended its surplus vitality by towing the natives a few miles in a mad frenzied burst of swimming, the bidarrah is quietly drawn up to its puffing form, close enough to permit the coup of an ivory-headed lance, then towed to the beach at high water; when the ebb is well out, the huge carcass is skinned by its dusky butchers, who eut it up into large square chunks of flesh and blubber, which are deposited in the little ‘‘Dutch-oven” caches of eack family that are waiting for its reception. Dressing the walrus hides is the only serious hard labor which the Alaskan Innuit subjects himself to; he cannot lay it entirely upon the women, as do the Sioux when they spread buffalo bodies all oyer the plains; it is too much for female strength alone, and so the men bear a hand right lustily in the business. It takes from four to six stout natives, when a green walrus hide isremoved, to carry it to the sweating hole where it is speedily unhaired; then stretched alternately upon air-frames and pinned over the earth, itis gradually scraped down to the requisite thinness for use in covering the bidarrah skeletons, etc. There are probably six or seven thousand human beings in Alaska who live alone by virtue of the existence of Rosmarus ; and, every year, when the season opens, they gather together by settlements, as they are contiguous, and discuss the walrus chances for the coming year as earnestly and as wisely as our farmers do, for instance, regarding the prospects for corn and potatoes. But the Eskimo hunter is a sadly improvident mortal, though he is not wasteful of morse life; while we are provident, and yet wasteful of our resources. If the north pole is ever reached by our people, they will do so only when they can eat walrus meat, and get plenty of it; at least that is my belief; and knowing now what the diet is, I think the journey to the hyperborean ultima is a long one, though there is plenty of meat, and many men who want to try it. t Morserovia, the Russian name for Walrus island; the natives also call Otter island by the Russian title of Bobrovia. ‘gigt ‘9 Ang ‘purist snsjemM :r1oyjne oy) Aq ayeur plo ue yo Apnys-axtT VW (Snoljode Snueurtsoy), ‘VHS DNIAdd AO SNAIVM AHL ——— ——— TXX 978Id ‘SGNY1ISI-1VaeS—udesbou0nm THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 95 first one up from the sea no sooner gets composed upon the rocks for sleep, than the second one comes along, prodding and poking with its blunted tusks, demanding room also, and causes the first to change its position to another location still farther off and up from the water, a few feet beyond ; then the second is in turn treated in the same way by a third, and so on until hundreds will be slowly packed together on the shore, as thickly as they can lie, never far back from the surf, however, pillowing their heads upon the bodies of one another, and not acting at all quarrelsome toward each other. Occasionally, in their lazy, phlegmatic adjusting and crowding, the posteriors of some old bull will be lifted up, and remain elevated in the air, while the passive owner sleeps with its head, perhaps, beneath the pudgy form of its rfeighbor. UsE OF TUSKS.—A great deal has been written in regard to the manner in which the walrus uses his enormous canines; many authors have it that they are employed by Rosmarus as landing hooks, so that by sticking them into the icy floes, or inserting them between rocky interstices or inequalities, the clumsy brute aids his hauling out from the sea. I looked here at Walrus island very closely for such manifestation of their service to the members of the herd, which was continually augmented by fresh arrivals from the surf while under my eye. They did not in a single instance use their tusks in this manner; it was all done by the fore-flippers, and “ boosting” of exceptionally heavy surf which rolled in at wide intervals, and for which marine assistance the walrus themselves seemed to patiently wait.* With all this apparent indifference, however, they have established their reputation for vigilance in spite of it; and they resort to a very singular method of keeping guard, if 1 may so term it. In this herd of three or four hundred male walrus that were under my eyes, though nearly all were sleeping, yet the movement of one would disturb the other, which would raise its head in a stupid manner, for a few moments, grunt once or twice, and before lying down to sleep again, it would strike the slumbering form of its nearest companion with its tusks, causing that animal to rouse up in turn for a few moments also, grunt, and pass the blow on to the next, lying down in the same manner. Thus the word was transferred, as it were, constantly and unceasingly around, always keeping some one or two aroused, which consequently were more alert than the rest. HELPLESSNESS ON LAND.—In moving on land they do not seem to have any physical power in the hind limbs; these are usually dragged and twitched up behind, or feebly flattened out at right angles to the body; terrestrial progression is slowly and tediously made by a dragging succession of short steps forward on. the fore-feet; but, if the alarm is given, it is astonishing to note the contrast which they present in their method of getting back to sea; they fairly roll and hustle themselves over and into the waves. How long they remain out from the water, in this country, I am unable to say; but, stored up as they are with such an enormous supply of surplus fat, dull and sluggish in temperament, I should think that they could sustain a fasting period equal to that of the Otariida, if not superior to them in endurance. These adult males before me looked very much larger than I expected to find the walrus, t and it was fortunate *J have seen no description of this Pacific walrus which is as good as is the first notice of it ever made to English readers, by Captain Cook, in his Last Voyage; it is, as far as it goes, precisely in accordance with my views of the same animal, nearly a century later, viz, July, 1872. He said: ‘‘They lie in herds of many hundreds upon the ice, huddling one over the other like swine, and roar or bay very loud, so that in the night, or in foggy weather, they gave us notice of the vicinity of the ice before we could see it. We never found the whole herd asleep; some being always on the watch. These, on the approach of the boat, would wake those next to them, and the alarm being thus gradually communicated, the whole herd would be awake presently. But they were seldom in a hurry to get away till after they had ence been fired at, when they would tumble one over the other into the sea in the utmost confusion, and if we did not at the first discharge kill those we fired at, we generally lost them, though mortally wounded. They did not appear to be that dangerous animal some authors have described, not even when attacked. They are rather more so to appearance than in reality. Vast numbers of them would follow, and some come close up to the boats; but the flash of a musket in the pan, or even the bare pointing of one at them, would send them down in an instant. The female will defend the young one to the very last, and at the expense of her own life, whether in the water or upon the ice. Nor will the young one quit the dam though she be dead; so that, if you kill one you are sure of the other. The dam, when in the water, holds the young one between her fore-fins.” [Cook’s (1778) Voyages to the Pacific Ocean, etc., vol. ii, p. 458. London, 1789.) I do not wish to appear in the light of desiring to detract one iota from that credit of accurate description which so justly belongs to Cook; but he himself did not indicate that he thought the Pacific walrus a distinct species from its Atlantic congener ; his figure of the Bering sea Rosmarus is entirely grotesque; a human face with beard, a thin neck and immensely inflated posteriors, and fore-flippers divided up into distinct fingers, make a creature as totally unlike Odobenus obesus as need be; yet, naturalists have gravely spoken of it as ‘‘excellent”! Had Captain Cook possessed the same explicit and graphic power of description in his pencil that characterizes his pen, I know full well that this caricature aboye referred to [Cook’s Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, etc., 1776-1780, vol. ii, pl. ii] would never have appeared. The pinnipeds are, perhaps, of all animals, the most difficult subjects that the artist can find to reproduce from life; there are no angles or elbows to seize hold of—the lines of body and limbs are all rounded, free and flowing; yet the very fleshiest examples never have that bloated, wind-distended look which most of the figures published give them. One must first become familiarized with the restless, varying attitudes of these creatures, by extended personal contact and observation, ere he can satisfy himself with the result of his drawings, no matter how expert he may be in rapid and artistic delineation. Life-studies, by artists, of the young of the Atlantic walrus have been made in several instances, but of the mature animal, there is nothing extant of that character. +The most satisfactory result that I can obtain from a careful study of what is on record as to the length of the adult 4 Atlantic walrus is a mean of 10 feet 7 inches; while my observations on Walrus island give the Bering sea 6 adult walrus an average of 11 feet; the only two examples which I measured were both over this figure, viz, 11 feet 9 inches, and 12 feet 7 inches, from tip of muzzle to the skinny nodule or excrescence, scientifically known as the tail; but they were striking exceptions in superior size to all the others in the large herd of old males before my eyes at the time, and were singled out for shooting on that score. I fully realize this, because in July, 96 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. : for the accuracy and good sense of these notes now published, that one of the natives kindiv volunteered to shoot any of the bulls, of which I might select, after I should have finished my sketching and writing. I therefore, when my drawings were completed, selected the largest animal in the group; and, promptly at my signal, a rifle ball crashed into the skull at the only place where it could enter, just on the line of the eye and the ear, midway between them. GREAT SIZE OF THE WALRUS.—This animal, thus slain, certainly was the Jargest one of the entire herd, and the following measurements and notes can, therefore, be relied upon: it measured 12 feet 7 inches from its bluff nostrils to the tip of its excessively abbreviated tail, which was ndt more than 24 or 3 inches long; it had the Surprising girth of 14 feet. The immense mass of blubber on the shoulders and around the neck made the head look strangely small in proportion, and the posteriors decidedly attenuated; indeed, the whole weight of the animal was bound up in its girth anteriorly; it was a physical impossibility for me to weigh this brute, and I therefore can do nothing but make a guess, having this fact to guide me: that the head cut directly off at the junction with the spine, or the occipital or atlas joint, weighed 80 pounds; that the skin, which I carefully removed with the aid of these natives, with the head, weighed 570 pounds. Deducting the head, and excluding the flippers, I think it is safe to say that the skin itself would not weigh less than 350 pounds, and the animal could not weigh much less than a ton—from 2,000 to 2,200 pounds. CHARACTERS OF HEAD.—The head has a decided flattened appearance, for the nostrils, eyes, and ear-spots seem to be placed nearly on top of the cranium; the nasal apertures are literally so, opening directly over the muzzle; they are oval, and closed parallel with the longitudinal axis of the skull, and when dilated are about an inch in their greatest diameter. : The tusks, or canines, are set firmly under the nostril-apertures in deep, massive, bony pockets, giving that strange, broad, square-cut front of the muzzle, so characteristic to the physiognomy. The upper lips of the walrus of Bering sea are exceedingly thick and gristly, and the bluff, square muzzle is studded, in regular rows and intervals, with a hundred or so short, stubby, gray-white bristles, varying in length from one-half to three inches. There are a few very short and much softer bristles set, also, on the fairly hidden chin of the lower jaw, which closes up under the projecting snout and muzzle, and is nearly concealed by the enormous tushes, when laterally viewed. PECULIARITIES OF THE EYES.—The eyes are small, but prominent; placed nearly on top of the head, and protruding from their sockets, bulge like those of the lobster. The iris and pupil of this eye is less than one-fourth of the exposed surface; the sclerotic coat swells out from under the lids when they are opened, and is of a dirty, mottled, coffee-yellow and brown, with an occasional admixture of white; the iris itself is light brown, with dark brown rays and spots. I noticed that whenever the animal roused itself, instead of turning its head, it rolled its eyes about, seldom moving the cranium more than to elevateit. The eyes seem to move, rotating in every direction when the creature is startled, giving the face of this monster a very extraordinary attraction, especially when studied by an artist. The expression is just indescribable. The range of sight enjoyed by the walrus out of water, I can testify, is not well developed ; for, after throwing small chips of rock down upon the walruses near me, several of them not being ten feet distant, and’ causing them only to stupidly stare and give vent to low grunts of astonishment, I then rose gently and silently to my feet, standing boldly up before them ; but then, even, I was not noticed, though their eyes rolled all over from above to under me. Had I, however, made a little noise, or had I been standing as far as 1,000 yards away from them to the windward, they would have taken the alarm instantly and tumbled oft into the sea like so many hustled wool-sacks ; for their sense of smell is of the keen, keenest. ACUTE HEARING.—The ears of the walrus, or rather the auricles to the ears, are on the same lateral line at the top of the head with the nostrils and eyes, the latter being just midway between. The pavilion, or auricle, is a mere fleshy wrinkle or fold, not at all raised or developed; an d, from what I could see of the meatus externus, it was very narrow and small; still, the natives assured me that the Otariide had no better organs of hearing than “Morsjee”. LOOSE SETTING OF THE TUSKS.—The head of the male walrus, to which I have alluded, and from which I afterward removed the skin, was 18 inches long between the nostrils and the post-occipital region ; and, although the enormous tusks seemed to be so firmly planted in their osseous sockets, judge of my astonishment when one of the younger natives flippantly struck a tusk with a wooden club quite smartly, and then easily jerked the tooth forth. I had frequently observed that it was difficult to keep the teeth from rattling out of their alveoli in any of the best skulls I had gathered of the fur-seals and sea-lions; especially difficult in the case of the latter. But again, on this interesting subject of dentition, it is best that I refer to Dr. Allen. Repetition of his admirable diagnosis is unnecessary here. UNUSUAL THICKNESS OF THE SKIN.—The thickness of the hide* of the walrus is, after all, in my opinion, its 1874, when I revisited Walrus island, I caused a younger male, and one tolerably well haired over with a very dark brown and short coat, to be shot; when measured it gave a length of only 10 feet 9 inches, and would not weigh, in my best estimation, more than 1,200 to 1,500 pounds. It was, however, filly matured. Thus the “ greater size” which I recognized in 1872, means an increased length of five or six inches to the Alaska form, with a relative greater avoirdupois. The complete and uniform unhairing of the old Alaskan male Odobenua, is another very characteristic feature in different expression from Atlantic herds. ; : *While savage man has utilized the tough hide of Rosmarus and Obesus, the skin was also used by the Russians themselyes to cover the packages of furs sent from Sitka to Kiachta, China; the skin was there stripped and again sewed anew over the chests of tea that were yebolpebexy 78 Seyoved—eoes oy} UO dn pe[ney S[IyAs Owirys” ey} Aq postiduns sesndjeM 0} 1sBJ Huryeur “eysely “puBIS] eoUed ABT 4S JO s}INUU] ‘NOOdaVH HHL ONIONN'Td i Le Bi cae: ee ae Se 7 — See : = > = = SSS % \ Sor aes ah Sep = SI ti Z! HOMES, eae Se Pals (f Cai ———— eo i (Ne ie “SGNV1ISI-1VaS—udesbouopw TIXX 2181d ; . THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 97 most anomalous feature. I remember well how surprised I was when I followed the incision of the broad-axe used in beheading the specimen shot for my benefit, to find that the skin over the shoulders and around the throat and chest was three inches thick—a puffy, spongy epidermis, outward hateful to the sight, and inwardly resting upon the slightly acrid fat or blubber so characteristic of this animal. Nowhere is this hide, upon the thinnest point of measurement, less than half an inch thick. It feeds exclusively upon shellfish (Lamellibranchiata), or clams principally, and also upon the bulbous roots and tender stalks of certain marine plants and grasses which grow in great abundance over the bottoms of broad, shallow lagoons and bays of the main Alaskan coast. I took from the paunch of the walrus above mentioned, more than a bushel of crushed clams in their shells, all of which that animal had evidently just swallowed, for digestion had scarcely commenced. Many of those clams in that stomach, large as my e¢’sached hands, were not even broken; and it is in digging this shellfish food that the services rendered by the enormous tusks become apparent.* COWARDICE OF THE WALRUS OF BERING SEA.—It may not accord with the singular tales told, on the Atlantie side, about the uses of these gleaming ivory teeth, so famous and conspicuous; but I believe that the Alaskan walrus employs them solely in the labor of digging clams and rooting bulbs from those muddy oozes and sand-bars in the estuary waters peculiar to his geographical distribution. Certainly, it is difficult for me to reconcile the idea of such uncouth, timid brutes, as were those spread before me on Walrus islet, with any of the strange chapters written as to the ferocity and devilish courage of the Greenland morse. These animals were exceeding cowardly; abjectly so. It is with the greatest difficulty that the natives, when a herd of walruses are surprised, can get a second shot at them; so far from clustering attacks around their boats, it is the very reverse; and the hunter’s only solicitude is which way to travel in order that he may come up with the fleeing animals as they rise to breathe. Again, I visited Walrus islet in 1874, accompanied by Lieutenant Maynard, United States navy, and the captain of the revenue-cutter Reliance. We rowed from the ship directly. toward the islet, to a point where we saw the accustomed and expected sight of walrus lying thereon. The wind was fair for us and we came up almost to within a boat’s oar distance of the dozing, phlegmatic herd. One was singled out, and Captain Baker shot it—his first walrus; the whole herd, as usual, hustled with terrible energy into the water, and all around our boat, for we had not landed, and they did not rise about or near us to give one snort of defiance, or to give us the faintest suggestion of any disposition to attack us, but they disappeared unpleasantly soon—too quickly. ABSENCE OF FEMALES ON WALRUS ISLAND.—As I have said before, there are no females on this island, and I can therefore say nothing about them; I regret it exceedingly. On questioning the natives, as we returned, they told me that the walrus of Bering sea was monogamous; and that the difference between the sexes in size, color, and shape is inconsiderable ; or, in other words, that until the males are old, the young males and the females of all ages are not remarkably distinct, and would not be at all if it were not for the teeth; they said that the female brings forth her young, a single calf, in June, usually, on the ice-floes in the Arctic ocean, above Bering straits, between point Barrow and cape Seartze Kammin; that this calf resembles the parent in general proportions and color when it is hardly over six weeks old, but that the tusks (which give it its most distinguishing expression) are not visible until the second year of its life; that the walrus mother is strongly attached to her offspring,t and nurses it later through the season in the sea; that the walrus sleeps profoundly in received in exchange for these furs thus enveloped, and which were carried hence to Moscow. Here the soundest portions of the hide remaining on the boxes were finally cut up and stamped into “‘ kopecks” and a variety of small change, in time, to revisit its native seas ; used as a circulating medium, for value received, throughout all Alaska where the Russians held power. A leather currency was long known to that country, and old Philip Volkov, of St. Paul, told me that he never saw silver or gold coin used on the seal-islands until our people brought it in 1868. These walrus parchment roubles were worth much less than their face value—sometimes only one-third. The Russians also made harness out of walrus leather. As long as the weather remained cold and dry the wear of this material was highly satisfactory, but woe to the “‘kibitscha” if caught out in a rain storm! The walrus harness then stretches like india-rubber, and the horses fairly leave the vehicle far behind, sticking in the road, though the traces are unbroken. *It is, and always will be, a source of sincere regret to me and my friends, that I did not bodily preserve this huge paunch and its contents. It would have filled a half barrel very snugly, and then its mass of freshly swallowed clams (Mya truncata), filmy streaks of macerated kelp, and fragments of crustaceans, could have been carefully examined during a week of leisure at the Smithsonian Institution. It was, however, ripped open so quickly by one of the Aleuts, who kicked the contents out, that I hardly knew what had been done, ere the strong-smelling subject was directly under my nose. The natives then were anxious that I should hurry through with my sketches, measurements, et¢., so that they might the sooner push off their egg-laden bidarrah and cross back to the main island, before the fogs would settle over our homeward track, or the rapidly rising wind shift to the northward and imperil our passage. Weighty reasons, these, which so fully impressed me, that this unique stomach of a carnivora was overlooked and left behind; hence, with the exception of curiously -turning oyer the clams (especially those uncrushed specimens), which formed the great bulk of its contents, I have no memoranda or even distinct recollection of the other materials that were incorporated. The olivaceous green color of its soft, pasty excrement must be derived from eating chlorosperme and divers branches of algoid growth. : tThat the sea-lion and the fur-seal should be so apathetic when danger to their young arises, and that the clumsy, timid walrus fights for their protection to the death, under the same circumstances, is somewhat strange. According to all reports which I can gather from reputable authority, notably Captain Cook’s brief, yet explicit, account, the walrus never deserts its young in that manner, h.rkerto described, so characteristic of the Otariide of Bering sea; this odd contrast in behavior is worthy of further attention, as far as 98 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. ~. the water, floating almost vertically, with barely more than the nostrils above water, and can be easily approached: if care is taken as to the wind, so as to spear it or shove a lance into its bowels; that the bulls do not fight as savagely as the fur-seal or the sea-lion; that the blunted tusks of these combatants seldom do more than bruise their thick hides; that they can remain under water nearly an hour, or about twice as long as the seals; and that they sink like so many stones, immediately after being shot at sea.* TIRSt RECORD OF THE OCCURRENCE OF FEMALES.—The reason why this band of males, and many of them old ones, should be here to the exclusion of females throughout thg year, is not plain. The natives assured me that walrus females, or their young, never have been seen around the shores of these islands; but I have trustworthy advices from the village of St. Paul, at the date of this publication, declaring the fact of the capture of a fenale on Walrus islet last fall, the first one ever recorded. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE WALRUS OF ALASKA.—The walrus has, however, a very wids range of distribution in Alaska, though not near so great as in prehistoric times.t They abound to the eastward and southeastward of St. Paul, over in Bristol bay, where great numbers congregate on the sand-bars and flats, now flooded, now bared by the rising and ebbing of the tide. They are hunted here to a considerable extent for their ivory; no walrus are found south of the Aleutian islands; still, not more than forty-five or fifty years ago, smal} gatherings of these animals were killed here and there on the islands between Kadiak and Oonimak pass; the greatest aggregate of them, south of Bering straits, will always be found in the estuaries of Bristol bay and on the north side of the peninsula. PREHISTORIC RANGE OF THE WALRUS.—Geologists find the record of the great ice period well filled up by: the range of the walrus, then, as far down on the A'lantic coast as the littoral margins of South and North. Carolina; and its fossil remains are common in the diluvial deposits of England and France, while the phosphate beds of New Jersey are exceedingly rich in old walrus bones; but, within historic times, there is no evidence that points to the existence of the walrus on the New England coast. During the last half of the sixteenth century they are known to have frequented the southern confines of Nova Scotia. That hardy navigator, James Cartier, tells. us, in his quaint vernacular, that in May, 1534, he met at the island of “Ramea” (probably Sable island), sporting in the sea, “‘very greate beastes, as greate as oxen, which have two greate teeth in their mouths like unto Elephant’s teeth, & live also in the Sea. We saw them sleeping on the banke of the water; wee, thinking to take it, went with our boates, but so soon as he heard us he caste himselfe into the sea”. Another old salt, “Thomas James, of Bristoll,” speaking of the same subject shortly after, says, ‘the fish cometh on banke (to do their kind) in April, May, and June, by numbers of thousands, which fish is very big, and hath two great teeth; and the skin of them is like Beeftes leather; and they will not away from their yong ones. The yong ones are as good meat as Veale. And with the bellies of five of the saide fishes they make a hogshead of Traine, which Traine is very sweet, which, the walrus is concerned. There were no females or young among the herds of Rosmarus which I observed at Walrusisland; hence, I am . unable myself to give any facts based upon life-studies. The reported affection and devotion of the mother walrus seems only natural, being, as it is, the rule throughout all the higher grades of mammalia; while this attitude of the sea-lion and fur-seal is decidedly opposed to it; and, were it not that it was so plainly presented in a thousand and one cases to my senses, I should have seriously doubted its correctness. Still, the best authority that I can recognize on the habits of the Phocidew, Kumlein, says that the hair-seals all display the same indifference which I portray in this respect as characteristic of the fur-seal and sea-lion.—[Kumlein: Contributions to the Natural History of Arctic America. Bull. U. S. Nationa’ Museum: Washington, p. 59, 1879.] *T personally made no experiments touching the peculiarity of sinking immediately after being shot; of course, on reflection, it will appear to any mind that all seals, no matter how fat or how lean, would sink instantly out of sight, if not killed at the stroke of the bullet; even if mortally wounded, the great involuntary impulse of brain and muscle would be to dive and speed away; for all swimming is submarine when the pinnipeds desire to travel. Touching this mooted question, I had an opportunity when in Port Townsend, during 1874, to ask a man who bad served as a partner in a fur-sealing schooner off the straits of Fuca. He told me that unless the seal was instantly killed by the passage of the rifle bullet through its brain, it was never secured, and would sink before they could reach the bubbling wake of its disappearance; if, however the aim of the marksman had been correct, then the body was invariably taken within five to ten minutes after the shooting. Only one man did the shooting; all the rest of the crew, 10 to 12 white men and Indians, manned canoes and boats which were promptly dispatched from the schooner, after each report, in the direction of the shooting. How long one of the bodies of these “‘clean” killed seals would float. he did not know; the practice always was to get it as quickly as possible, fearing that the bearings of its position, when shot from the schooner, might be confused or lost; he also affirmed that, in his opinion, there were not a dozen men on the whole northwest coast who were good enough with arifle, and expert at distance calculation, to shoot fur-seals successfully from the deck of a vessel on the ocean. The Indians of Cape Flattery get most of the pelagic fur-seals by cautiously approaching from the leeward when they are asleep, and throwing line darts or harpoons into them before they awaken. tI have been frequently questioned whether, in my opinion, it was more than a short space of time ere the walrus was exterminated or not, since the whalers had begun to hunt them in Bering sea and the Arctic ocean. To this I frankly make answer, that I do not know enough of the subject to give correct judgment. The walrus spend most of their time in waters that are within reach of these skillful and hardy navigators; and if they (the walrus) are of sufficient value to the whaler, he can, and undoubtedly will, make a business of killing them, and work the same sad result that he has brought about with the mighty schools of cetacea, which once whistled and bared their backs throughout the now deserted waters of Bering sea in perfect peace and seclusion prior to 1842. The returns of the old Russian America Company show that an annual average of 10,000 walrus have been slain by the Eskimo since 1799 up to 1867. There are a great many left yet. But untess the oil of Rosmarus becomes very precious, commercially, I think the sheal waters of Bristol bay and Kuskolcvim mouth, together with the eccentric tides thereof, will preserve it indefinitely. Forty years ago, when the North Pacitic was the rendezvous of *BYSETV Jo “ojo ‘aepreq ‘eyIeprq ‘ssarp jooure[qe TL pues] QOUSTAABT 4S ‘Snd[eAA peisneyxe oy} Hurousl ours” ‘SOYIVM AHL AO AXNOULS-HLVAG AHL wi My ye i \ | | / A He eS ‘TIX X 978Id ‘SSAGNV1ISI-TvHS—udesboucpy THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 99 if it will make sope, the King of Spaine may burne some of his Olive trees.” (!) This spice of Yankee enterprise in “sope”, evidently, did not come to a successful head.* THE WALRUS “BIDARRAH”.—The finest bidarrah skin-boats of transportation that I have seen in this country, were those of the St. Lawrence natives; these were made out of dressed walrus hides, shaved and pared down by them to the requisite thickness, so that when they were sewed with sinews to the wooden whalebone-lashed frames of these boats, they dried into a pale, greenish-white, prior to oiling; and were even then almost translucent, tough and strong. USES OF WALRUS HIDES.—Until I saw the bidarrahs of the St. Lawrence natives in 1874, I was more or less inclined to believe that the tough, thick, and spongy hide of the walrus would be too retractory in dressing for use in covering such light frames, especially those of the bidarka; but the manifest excellence and seaworthiness of these Eskimo boats satisfied me that I was mistaken. I saw, however, abundant evidence of the much greater labor required in tanning or paring down the thick cuticle to that thin, tough transparency so marked on their bidarrahs; for the pelt of the hair seal, or sea-lion, does not require any more attention when applied to this service than simply unhairing it; this is done by first sweating the “loughtak” in piles, then rudely, but rapidly, scraping, with blunt knives or stone Fences. the hair off in large patches at every stroke; the skin is then air-dried, being stretched on a stout frame, where, in the lapse of a few weeks, it becomes as rigid as a board. When required for use thereafter, it is soaked in water until soft or “green” again, then it is sewed with sinews, while in this fresh condition, tightly over the slight wooden skeleton of the bidarka or the heavier frame of the bidarrah. In this manner the skin-boats and lighters at the islands are covered ; then they are air-dried thoroughly before oiling, which is done when the skin has become well indurated, so as to bind the ribs and keel as with ap iron plating; the thick. unrefined seal-oil keeps the water out for twelve to twenty hours, according to the character of the hides; when, however, the skin-covering begins to “bag in” between the ribs of the frame, then it is necessary to haul the bidarrah out and air-dry it again, and re-oiling. If attended to thoroughly and constantly, those skin-covered boats are the best species of lighter which can be used at these islands, for they will stand more thumping and pounding on the rocks and alongside ship than all wooden, or even corrugated iron lighters could endure, and remain seaworthy. MANNER OF DRESSING WALRUS AND SEA-LION HIDES.—I noticed that the St. Lawrence Eskimo pared the walrus hide down from the outer surface or hairy side; while at St. Paul, when it became necessary to reduce the thickness of a sea-lion’s skin at spots around the neck and shoulders, the paring was done on the fleshy side. Very little thinning, however, was needed in the case of sea-lion “loughtak”.t GASTRONOMIC QUALITIES OF WALRUS MEAT.—The flavor of the raw, rank mollusca, upon which it feeds, seems to permeate the ce of the ESS HI it very offensive to the civilized palate; but the Eskimos, who do the ott whaling fleet that ever floated, those vessels could not, nor can they now, approach nearer than sixty or even eighty miles of the muddy shoals, sands, and bars upon which the walrus rest there; scattered in herds of a dozen or so in numbers up to bodies of thousands; living in lethargic peace, and almost unmolested, except in several small districts which are carefully hunted over by the natives of Oogashik for oil and ivory. I have been credibly informed that they also breed in Bristol bay, and along the coast as far north as Cape Avinova, during some seasons of exceptional rigor in the Arctic. *I depart from the Pacific walrus, for a moment, in thus speaking of its Atlantic brother with reference to the testimony of the rocks as to its limit of southern range north of the equator; for the thought of herds of walrus floating down on immense frigid floes over the present low lands of Virginia and North Carolina, and of Anvers aad near Paris, France, is an interesting one, relative to the features of the great ice age; down they came, that is certain. Van Beneden and Leidy have recently figured their aged bones as they are silicified or cast in the marls of those southern coasts and interiors. [See Leidy, Trans. Am. Phil. Soc., xi, 1860, Philadelphia. Van Beneden: Des de Oss. Foss. des Envirns @ Anvers; Annales Mus. @ Hist. Nat. de Belgique, 1877, tome i, pp. 40-41.] No such bones have as yet been founp on the northwest coast, or in Alaska. + When I stepped, for the first time, into the baidar of St. Paul island, and went ashore, from the ‘‘Alexander”, over a heavy sea, safely to the lower bight of Lukannon bay, my sensations were of emphatic distrust; the partially water-softened skin-covering would putt up between the wooden ribs, and then draw back, as the waves rose and fell, so much like an unstable support above the cold green water below, that I frankly expressed my surprise at such an outlandish craft. My thoughts quickly turned to a higher appreciation of those hardy navigators who used these vessels in cireumpolar seas years ago, and the Russians, who, more recently, employed bidarrahs chiefly to explore Alaskan and Kamtchatkan terraincognita. There is an old poem in Avitus, written by a Roman as early as 445 A. D.; it describes the ravages of Saxon pirates along the southern coasts of Britain, who used just such vessels as is this bidarrah of St. Paul, Quin et armoricus piratim Saxona tractus Spirabat, cui pelle falum fuleare Britannum Ludus, et assuto glaucum mare findere lembo. These boats were probably covered with either horse or bull’s hides. When used in England they were known as coracles; in Ireland they were styled curachs; Pliny tells us that Cesar moved his army in Britain over lakes and rivers in such boats. Even the Greeks used them, terming them karabia; and, the Russian word of korabl’, or ‘“‘ship”, is derived from it. King Alfred, in 870-872, tells us that the: Finns made sad havoc among the Swedish settlements on the numerous ‘‘meres” (lakes) in the moors of their country, by ‘‘ carrying their ships (baidars) overland in the meres whence they make depredations on the Northmen; their ships are small and very light”. All air-dried seal pelts, no matter whether hair- or fur-seal, sea-lion or walrus hides, are called by the Aleutians, and also by the Kamtchadales, ‘‘loughtak” or “‘lofitak”. When the natives of Kamtchatka told Steller in 1740~42, that the large hair-seal, Phoca barbata, was known to them as ‘“‘loughtak”, they evidently did not give him their specific name for the seal; but rather expressed their sense of irs large skin, which was so highly prized by them as to be ‘‘the loughtak” of al] other loughtak in those waters of their country. Lrignathus barbatus has never been seen around or of these islands of the Pribylov group, but every air-dried fur-seal, or sea-lion skin, there. is called ‘“‘loughtak” by the people. 100 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. not have the luxurious spread of sea-lion steak and fur-seal hams, regard it as highly and feed upon it as steadily as we do our own best corn-fed beef. Indeed, the walrus to the Eskimo answers just as the cocoa-palm does to the South Sea islander ; it feeds him, it clothes him, it heats and illuminates his “igloo”; and it arms him for the chase, while he builds his summer shelter and rides upon the sea by virtue of its hide. Naturally, however, it is not much account to the seal-hunters on the Pribyloy islands; they still find, by stirring up the sand-dunes and digging about them at Northeast point, all the ivory that they require for their domestic use on the islands, nothing else about the walrus being of the slightest economic value to them. Some authorities have spoken well of walrus meat as an article of diet; either they had that sauce for it born of inordinate hunger, or else the cooks deceived them. Starving explorers in the arctic regions could relish it—they would thankfully and gladly eat anything that was juicy, and sustained life, with zest and gastronomic fervor. The Eskimo naturally like it; it is a necessity to their existence, and thus a relish for it is acquired. I can readily understand, by personal experience, how a great many, perhaps a majority of our own people, could speak well, were they north, of seal meat, of whale “rind”, and of polar bear steaks, but I know that a mouthful of fresh or “‘cured” walrus flesh would make their “gorges rise”. The St. Paul natives refuse to touch it as an article of diet in any shape or manner. I saw them removing the enormous testicles of one of the old bull walrus which was shot, for my purposes, on Walrus island; they told me that they did so in obedience to the wish of the widow doctress of the village, Maria Seedova, who desired a pair for her incantations. Curiosity, mingled with a desire to really understand, alone tempted me to taste the walrus meat which was placed before me at Poonook, on St. Lawrence island; and candor compels me to say that it was worse than the old beaver’s tail which I had been victimized with in British Columbia; worse than the tough brown-bear steak of Bristol bay—in fact, it is the worst of all fresh flesh of which I know; it has a strong flavor of an indefinite acrid nature, which turned my palate and my stomach instantaneously and simultaneously, while the surprised natives stared in bewildered silence at their astonished and disgusted guest. They, however, greedily put chunks, two inches square and even larger, of this flesh and blubber into their mouths as rapidly as the storage room there would permit; and, with what grimy gusto! the corners of their large lips dripping with the fatness of their feeding. How little they thought then, that in a few short seasons they would die of starvation sitting in these same igloos—their caches empty and nothing but endless fields of barren ice where the life-giving sea should be. The winter of 1879~80 was one of exceptional rigor in the Arctic, although in the United States it was unusually mild and open. The ice closed in solid around St. Lawrence island—so firm and unshaken by the giant leverage of wind and tide, that the walrus were driven far to the southward and eastward beyond the reach of the unhappy inhabitants of that island, who, thus unexpectedly deprived of their mainstay and support, seem to have miserably starved to death, with the exception of one small village on the north shore. The residents of the Poonook, Poogovellyak, and Kagallegak settlements perished, to a soul, from hunger; nearly three hundred men, women, and children. I recall the visit which I made to these settlements, in August, 1874, with sadness, in this unfortunate connection, because they impressed me with their manifest superiority over the savages of the northwest coast. They seemed, then, to be living, during nine months of the year, almost wholly upon the flesh and oil of the walrus. Clean limbed, bright eyed, and jovial, they profoundly impressed me with their happy reliance and subsistence upon the walrus herds of Bering sea. I could not help remarking then, that these people had never been subjected to the temptations and subsequent sorrow of putting their trust in princes; hence, their independence and good heart.. But now it appears that it will not do to put your trust in walrus, either. I know that it is said by Parry, by Hall, and lately by others, that the flesh of the Atlantic walrus is palatable; perhaps the nature of food-supply is the cause. We all recognize the wide difference in pork from hogs fed on corn and those fed on beech mast and oak acorns, and those which have lived upon the offal of the slaughtering houses or have gathered the decayed castings of the sea shore; the walrus of Bering sea lives upon that which does not give pleasant flavor to its flesh. P IMPERFECTION OF WALRUS IVORY.—Touching the ivory, I was struck, in looking over the tusks as they protruded from the live animals’ mouths, by the fact that only rare examples of perfect teeth could be found; they were broken off irregularly, some quite close to the socket, hardly a single animal having a sound and uniform pair of tusks. Most of the walrus ivory taken is of very poor quality; it has a deep core, or yellow, suspended pith, and is frequently so cracked, where the ivory is the whitest and the firmest, as to, be of mere nominal value; but exceptional teeth now and then occur, of prodigious size and superior texture; these are carefully treasured and sold to great advantage. THE ANTIQUITY OF WALRUS HUNTING.—Generally, when we look for the earliest records of this or that action or occupation, we are treated to a vast store of indeterminate material, upon which any theory or conjecture may be raised. But, touching the case of the hunting of the fur-seal and the walrus, in northern waters, we have exact data as to records of the earliest chase and capture of these animals by our own people. The history of walrus hunting comes down to us from rare old antiquity, in this way: Shortly after 868 A. D., King Alfred, of England, gave a translation of the Spanish Ormestra, or “‘ Di miserere mundi,” of Paul Orosius, in his mother tongue, the Anglo-Saxon; into this complete and only geographical revgew of the earth’s form, as known at —— Se oe ‘ssBodBo SndTeAA B Hurstoy ‘eyselTy ‘PUBIS] eDUeTMBT 4S JO syINUUT ‘OWINSA AHL HO ..adSVHOANd ATANO:;, 1 - ( \\ {IS ‘SANV1ISI-TVAS—udeaboucw “AIXX 9781d THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 101 that time, he interwove the relations of Othere and the Dane Wulfstan. The former was a great man from Norway; he undertook a voyage of discovery beyond the north cape of his native land, and to the then unknown eastward as far as our modern Finland, which he indicated as the “country of the Beormas”. He shaped his course to this region, “on account of the horse whales, inasmuch as they have very good bone in their teeth”; also, ‘this sort of _ whale is much less than the other kinds, it being not larger commonly than seven ells”; and states further that be Othere, “had killed fifty-six in two days”. DESCHNEV THE FIRST TO SEE THE WALRUS OF BERING SEA.—The earliest personal record made of the walrus of Bering sea, was the discovery of these animals by Simeon Deschnev, that Cossack who, first of all civilized men, sailed through Bering straits, October, 1648; and who made use of their ivory, en voyage, in repairing his rude shallop. He also, in 1651, discovered extensive sand shoals north of the Anadyr mouth, upon which large herds of walrus were resting. But in this connection it is proper to say, that the walrus of Bering sea is the same animal of which Isaiah Ignatiev learned in 1646, when he led a party of Russian fur-hunters east of the mouth of the Kolyma as far as Tchaun bay. He did not see it, however, and traded with the Tschukchies for the teeth in question. His report of a nation rich in walrus ivory far to the eastward along the shores of the Polar ocean, is what stimulated the remarkable voyage of Deschnev, above referred to, as well as many others who were not so successful,* viz: Staduchin, Alexiev, Ankudinov, Buldakov, all in 1647-1649. BoREAL RANGE OF THE WALRUS OF BERING SEA.—The range of the Bering sea walrus now appears to be restricted in the Arctic ocean to an extreme westward at Cape Chelagskoi, on the Siberian coast, and an extreme’ eastward between Point Barrow and the region of Point Beechey, on the Alaskan shore. It is, however, substantially confined between Koliutchin bay, Siberia, and Point Barrow, Alaska. As far as its distribution in polar waters is concerned, and how far to the north it travels from these coasts of the two continents, I am unable to present any well authenticated data illustrative of the subject; the shores of Wrangell Land were found this year (1881) in possession of walrus herds. The Japanese seem to have known of the walrus of Bering sea, but evidently have not observed it—at least, L think so, from the testimony of their spirited drawings of this animal. They represent it with the body, the neck, and the limbs of a horse, running on camel-like feet, with an equine head, from the upper jaw of which two enormous tusks depend; it is made to gallop rather as a land- than a sea-horse. The hair-seals are very. much better delineated by both Chinese and Japanese artists; and, further, no suggestion, by such means, has beem made of the fur-seal by them. ‘ The chief demand for walrus ivory first came, and still comes, front those patient, skillful Mongolian hand- carvers, who work the teeth up into a variety of exceedingly attractive articles, both useful and fanciful. Wrangell says that the Tschukchies “‘ make long, narrow drinking vessels from the teeth”, which require much time to hollow out; they are frequently sold to the Reindeer Tschakchies, who convey them to the Russians. The walrus ivory carving of the Alaskan Mahlemoots, at Oogashik and Nushagak, in particular, is remarkably well executed; clever and even beautiful imitations of our watch chains, guards, table, and pocket cutlery, rings, bracelets, and necklace jewelry are made by them. They have earned the just reputation of being “the sculptors of the north”. : PARRYS HISTORY OF THE ATLANTIC WALRUS.—In closing here this brief biography of the walrus of Bering sea, I desire to say that the graphic and detailed account given by Sir Edward Parry, in the narrative of his third voyage to the north pole, of the manner in which the Eskimo hunt and use the walrus of Prince Regent inlet (Odobenus rosmarus), fitly expresses my own observations made at St. Lawrence island, among the Tschukchie Eskimo there; hence, [ shall not embody them in type; my illustrations will supply the vacancy which his accurate and lengthy description alone allows.t I call attention to this economic history of the Atlantic walrus by Parry, for, in my opinion, it is written with great fidelity. *Allen erroneously gives the credit (on p. 172, Hist. of N. A. Pinnipeds) of first discovery and report of the walrus ivory of Bering sea to “the Cossak adventurer Staduchin, who found (about 1645 to 1648) its tusks on the Tschukchie coast, near the mouth of the Kolyma river. A century later, Deschney also found large quantities of walrus teeth on the sand-bars at the mouth of the Anadyr”. Michael Staduchin did not sail from the Kolyma mouth until 1649. He ventured at that time as far east probably as Cape Chelagskoi; he was obliged to return then, after getting a load of walrus teeth from the Tschukchies, but from whom he could get no meat or provision of any kind; he saw no more than his predecessor, Ignatiev, did, three years prior; in other words, he did not then see the walrus itself. + As the natives of the Pribylov islands do not hunt the walrus, I have, in my studies of this animal, introduced the figures, method, and costumes of the St. Lawrence Eskimo, which faithfully typify the entire Alaskan people, who live largely upon the flesh of this animal. I do so, not only on account of its being wholly germane to the subject of my discussion in this monograph, but more so, as it is the first pictorial presentation of the ideas involved ever given. 102 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. H. A BRIEF REVIEW OF OFFICIAL REPORTS UPON THE CONDUCT OF AFFAIRS ON THE SEAL-ISLANDS. 19. SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS OF LIEUT. WASHBURN MAYNARD, U.S. N. A SYNOPSIS OF LIEUT. MAYNARD’S REPORT.—In closing this biology of the seal-life on the Pribylov islands, it it is not superfluous on my part to present to the reader a brief review of the writings which have been ordered by the government upon the condition of the subject at the islands. I have previously called attention to the fact that prior to my work in 1872 and 1874, inclusive, a singular absence of a business-like and succinct method of comprehensive information existed in the archives of the Treasury Department, which is charged by law with the absolute control of these interests, and is responsible to Congress for the same. In order, therefore, that this statement of mine shall not pass as a mere assertion on my part, I deem it due to the history of the subject of this memoir, at the present writing, to give a brief abstract of the labors of those officials of the government who have made the fur-seals of Alaska the thesis of their publications and correspondence. These papers are so scattered that a combination here of their substance may not be uninteresting. I shall comment only upon those documents which have a direct reference to the Pribyloy islands. SPECIAL REPORT oF LIEUT. WASHBURN MAYNARD, U. S. N.—Before touching upon the special labors of the treasury officials, I wish to direct the attention of the reader to the following synopsis of an exceedingly concise and interesting contribution to the subject of the business on the seal-islands. It is from the pen of Lieut. Washburn Maynard, IJ. S. N., and was submitted by him to the Secretary of the Navy on the 30th of November, 1874. His work of investigation was in obedience to the order of Congress expressed in an act approved April 22, 1874. The occasion of this gentleman’s labor arose directly from the constant and reiterated charges, made more by insinuation than by specific writing, against the correctness of my published position in regard to the conduct of the business on the seal-islands, and he proceeded to that field of duty conscious of the fact, and determined to settle it as far as he was able to, by a thorough and personal scrutiny of the whole subject. He did so; and I now desire to embody the substance of his communication above referred to. The only fault which can be found with Lieutenant Maynard’s report is, that it is exceedingly brief, though explicit. I should say here that he evidently did not consider this writing, from which I shall quote, more than a simple statement of fact, and made it in the nature of an answer to the order of a superior officer. 20. SYNOPSIS OF LIEUT. MAYNARD’S INVESTIGATIONS. THE SUBSTANCE OF Linu’. MAYNARD’S REPORT.—The islands of St. Paul and St. George, or the seal-islands, as they are more commonly called, are the principal ones of the Pribylov group; the other two, known as Otter and Walrus, are merely outlying islets. They are situated in Bering sea, between the parallels of 56° to 58° of north latitude and 169° to 171° of west longitude. St. Paul has an area of 33 square miles, while St. George claims but 29, with, respectively, 42 and 29 miles of shore-line each. CLIMATE.—They are enveloped in summer by dense fogs, through which the sun rarely makes its way, and are surrounded in severe winters by fields of ice driven down by the Arctic winds. They have no sheltered harbors beyond slight indentations in the shore-line that afford a lee for vessels and tolerable landing places for boats when certain winds are blowing. SHORES AND VEGETATION.—The shores are bold and rocky, with strips of sand-beach, and are covered by broken rocks at intervals between them. The interior of both islands is broken and hilly; neither tree nor shrub grows upon them, but they are clothed with grass, moss, and wild flowers. For nearly one hundred years fur-seals have been known to visit them annually in great malian for the purpose of bringing forth and raising their young, which circumstance gives those islands their great commercial importance. HABITS OF THE SEAL.—These seals occupy the islands from the breaking away of the ice in the spring until it surrounds their coasts again in early winter, that is, from the middle of May until December. In milder hyemal seasons, when there is little or no ice about the islands, a few seals have been seen swimming around in the water throughout the entire year, but these exhibitions rarely occur. The fur-seals are not known to haul up on land elsewhere within the limits of the North Pacific ocean, except at Bering and Copper islands, lying in Bering sea near the Asiatic coast, and Robbin’s reef, a small 10ck on the coast. They certainly go from those landing places to the southward in the fall, tor they are frequently seen in the sea, either solitary or in shoals of thousands, and are killed in the water all the way from Sitka to the straits of Fuca. In 1833, 54 were taken by the Russians on the Farralone islands, off seaward from the entrance to the bay of San Francisco. There seems to be no reason why they cannot remain in the water during the entire time they are absent from the islands, for they eat their food there at all times, and are able to sleep upon its surface. CLASSIFICATION OF THE SEALS.—They may be divided into two classes, the breeding and the non-breeding seals; the former comprise the full-grown males or bulls, the adult females or cows, and their young or pups; the i) “if ee ae, Bey ons nai" fe ase ea yc) ha Pan ats Es — SOMMOTIT,, OY} UO SPIO SMIPBA\ “9 “ROM SUN PUL SYLY ON} TOMA FO SPU oO} UL PUL TadAgoq ‘sLOp[MOd WAOIZ-JINE Vso, pur gpsuIYS Kyooy “p —_*(snpAponprwg 7 pus pss Moye pus ‘(snonn6 snumT) [NS zaojsvuosang oy} Aq Apatyo pordnodo ‘10 asat]} JO SHarTdorp OTF TILM OIA SI4T “[AOJ-TxVAr AOT[1O [[e JO ToIsnpoxe on} 0} (DAL Damo) saLILY OT} Xq Petosod Foq NLayeTT “111 *(8N7INI874029 SrARIDU PUL ‘sNpMoNpLY snADT '81.4780.QA0L) HSsyAT) RAOULT OLY} PUL ‘S|[TNS oYTAN LY pure essyyz oy 4q porduoso syuoaz yO “y ‘spadiq-Hurpoed¢ jo souoz deijnoed oy} pues ‘spusy yt Se snape~A oy} Huraroys ‘“LHISI SNATVM. oe! ——o SS . 5 ea — ~ _ SS SS SS Tet io oS Be eet a oe eS a —— = ae id si eae ae. —— £6 = SE eee ee a —— ASN SF SS > RS eee os, — = ~ — asa) SSS SS ae ‘SSGNVWISI-1TvVaS—ydeubouopy “AXX 081d THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 103 : latter embrace the young or bachelor males and the yearlings of both classes. Tach of these classes leave the water and haul up along the shores of the islands nearly in juxtaposition to each other as they are massed on the land, but they are entirely separate. They choose certain portions of the shore to the exclusion of the rest, not all of any one class being together, but spreading into many communities, which are often several miles apart. POSITION OF THE BREEDING-ROOKERIES.—The breeding seals occupy a slip of ground, between the cliffs, which is covered with bowlders and broken rocks, beginning a few feet above high-water mark, and extending back over a depth of from 50 to 200 feet in a compact and uniform mass Such places are called breeding-rookeries. POSITION OF THE HAULING-GROUNDS.—The non-breeding seals, on the contrary, are scattered over the sand. beaches and the higher ground in the rear without any reguiar order of distribution. When these hauling-grounds lie to the rear of the breeding-grounds, as they sometimes do, pathways are left open in the rookeries at convenient points, torallow a passage up from the sea and back thereto, for the non-breeding seals. NUMBER OF ROOKERIES.—There are 7 rookeries on St. Paul island, extending with the adjacent hauling- grounds over one-third of its shore-line, and on St. George island there are 5 breeding places and hauling reaches, which, however, take up less than one-tenth of its coast. These breeding-grounds are re-occupied each year with but little change. DESCRIPTION OF THE LANDING OF THE SEAL.—About the middle of May, usually, the bulls, which are the first of the breeding-seals to arrive, crawl from the water and establish the rookeries in readiness for the cows that begin to come somewhat later. It seems probable that the rookeries are occupied by the same bulls and cows from year to year, as they, the rookery grounds, change but little, either in size or form; but it has been proven that the bachelors do not return to the same hauling-grounds, or even to the same island, with regularity from year to year. The time of arrival of cows is governed by their period of gestation, as they do not appear on the rookeries until within a short time of giving birth to their pups. Hence all do not come at the same period, but arrive continuously from the last days of May until the middle of July. POLYGAMOUS AND ANGRY NATURE OF THE MALES.—The bulls are polygamous, having from 20 to 50 cows each, so the number of them upon the rookeries is not more than one-tenth of that of the cows. They have frequent and bloody fights for the possession and retention of their places upon the breeding-grounds, and for control of the cows, in which they are often killed, or are driven from the rookeries, and are more or less badly bitten by the sharp teeth of their opponents. The females do not even always escape unhurt, as two males seize one and literally tear her in two by their struggle for her possession. ARRIVAL OF THE FEMALES AND BIRTH OF THEIR YOUNG.—The cows are continuously arriving upon the rookeries and giving birth to their pups, from the last of May until the middle of July. Usually each female bears a single pup, though I have been told by persons, whose statement I have no reason to doubt, that they have witnessed one or two instances of twins. From the 20th to the 25th of July the rookeries are fuller than at any other time during the season, as the pups have all been born, and all the bulls, cows, and pups remain within these limits. PROTRACTED FASTING OF THE MALES.—During the breeding-season, which lasts three consecutive months, or nearly so, the bulls remain upon the rookeries, never leaving them for an instant, even to procure food. This - fast, and the constant watchfulness necessary to keep their harems together, and to prevent the encroachments of other bulls, and the service of the cows, renders their position no sinecure. Their emaciated bodies and loose and wrinkled skins at the close of the season “are in marked contrast to the fat, sleek-looking cows, for the latter have been constantly going and coming between the rookeries and the water, so that at any one time there are seldom more than one-half of the females on land. CHANGES AT THE CLOSE OF THE SEASON.—About the first of August the breeding-season ends, and the pups, which grow rapidly, now are large and strong enough to move about, so that the rookeries begin to lose their compact form and rigid exclusiveness. The bulls begin to go into the water, their places being filled by the younger males, which up to this time have not been allowed by the older males to go upon the rookeries, while the cows and pups spread back over the haulings in scattered groups, and occupy more than twice the space that had previously held them. ARRIVAL AND LANDING OF THE BACHELOR SEALS.—Meanwhile the young males or bachelor seals have been coming to the hauling-grounds, which are covered more or Jess thickly by them all summer. They do not remain on shore long at any one time, but haul up to sleep and play for awhile, and then return to the water for food. They are so numerous, however, that thousands can always be seen upon the hauling-grounds, because all of them are never either on shore or in the water at the same time. The yearling seals, distinguished by their size, and the silvery color of their sides and abdomens, do not make their appearance until the latter part of July; then they arrive together in a great body, males and females, and go out upon the hauling-grounds in large numbers and play one with the other for hoursat a time. The bachelors join them in their sport, and singling out the baby cows form mimic rookeries, and imitate the roaring, fighting, and caressing of the bulls in a ludicrous manner. SHEDDING OF THE PUPS AND THEIR LEARNING TO SwimM.—In September and October the pups exchange their coat of black hair, which has been their only covering from their birth, for one of fur and hair combined, similar in appearance to that of the yearling, and then begin to learn to swim, so as to be ready for their departure ~ 104 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. from the islands in November and December. Prior to this period many of them are killed by the surf, especially if the season be a stormy one, since they are not strong enough swimmers or expert enough to save themselves from being dashed against the rocks by the heavy rollers. The cows remain with their pups and suckle them, until all classes have left the islands, usually by the 1st or 10th of December. It is probable that of all the seals born each year an aggregate of about one half are males. The experiment was tried of examining one hundred pups, taken at random from the rookeries, and in that number the sexes were about equally divided. The number of bachelor seals in proportion to the cows would also seem to confirm the supposition. CHARACTERISTIC CHANGES OF THE PELAGE.—There is not the slightest perceptible difference in appearance between the seals of the two classes, either in the first or in the second year after the* birth, but as they grow older they vary and diverge in the tinting of their coats, so as to be readily determined each from the other. The pups when born have only short black hair, no fur. This coat is gradually replaced in their first year by a dress of fine elastic fur, of a light buff color, and of hair longer than the fur, so as to cover it completely and give that silvery-gray to their sides and bellies, and that dark gray characteristic of their necks and heads. The color of their hair changes in their second year to a uniform dark gray. In their fifth year the hair upon the neck and shoulders of the males begins to grow coarser and longer, forming a sort of mane, which increases in length and stiffness until the animal attains its full growth, during the lapse of its eighth or ninth year of life. The females are not found upon the hauling-grounds with the males after they are two years old, hence it seems probable that they go trom the rookery in their third, and bear a pup in their fourth year. When both are full grown the sexes differ most widely in appearance; the male, weighing from four to five hundred pounds, is about three times as large as the female, has a mane, and is either black or dark brown in color. The tinting of the female is a soft, rich brown on the back and sides, changing almost to orange upon the belly, and there is uo mane. The fur of the cows is rather thicker and finer than that of the yearling seals, though the skins of young males from three to six years old are not very much inferior. IMPORTANCE OF KNOWING THE NUMBER OF SEALS.—It is of very great significance in this connection to know how many seals come annually to the islands, or rather to understand how many may be killed for their skins annually, without causing less to come hereafter than do at the present time. To determine how many there are with accuracy is a task almost on a par with that of numbering the stars. The singular motion of the animals when on shore, the great variety in size, color, and position; the extent of surface over which they are spread, and the fact that it cannot be determined exactly what proportion of them, of their several classes, are on shore, at any given time; all these desiderata for comprehension make it simply impossible to get more than an approximation of their numbers. They have been variously estimated at from one to fifteen millions. METHODS OF ENUMERATION OF THE FUR-SEAL.—I think the most accurate enumeration yet made is that by Mr. H. W. Elliott, special agent of the Treasury Department, in 1872. This calculation is based upon the hypothesis that the breeding-seals are governed in hauling by a common and invariable law of distribution, which is, that the area of the rookery ground is directly proportional to the number of seals occupying it. He estimates that there is one seal to every two square feet of rookery surface. Hence the problem is reduced to the simple operation of obtaining half the sum of the superficial area of all the rookeries in square feet. He surveyed these breeding- grounds of both islands in 1872 and 1875, when at their greatest limit of expansion, and obtained the following results: Upon St. Paul island there were 6,060,000 feet of ground occupied by 3,030,000 breeding-seals and their young. On St. George island he announced 326,840 square feet of superficial rookery area occupied by 163,420 breeding-seals and their young; a total for both islands of 3,193,420 breeding-seals and their young. The number of non-breeding seals cannot be determined in the foregoing manner, as they haul most irregularly, but it seems to me probable that they are nearly as numerous as the other class is. If so, it would give not far from 6,000,000 as the stated number of seals of all kinds which visited the Pribyloyv islands during the season of 1872. GENERAL ACCURACY OF THESE RESULTS.—It is likely that these figures are not far from the truth, but I do not think it necessary myself to take into consideration the actual number of seals in order to decide the question of how many can be taken each year without injury to the fishery. The law that the size of the rookeries varies directly as the number of seals increases or diminishes, seems to me, after close and repeated observation, to be correct. All the rookeries, whether large or small, are uniform in appearance, alike compact, without waste of space, and never crowded. Such being the case, it is unimportant to know the actual number of seals upon the rookeries. For any change in the number of seals, which is the point at issue, increases or decreases in size, and the rookeries taken collectively, will show a corresponding increase or decrease in the number of breeding- seals; consequently changes in the aggregate of pups born annually upon which the extent and safety of the fisheries depends, can be observed accurately from year to year by following these lines of survey. SURVEYED PLATS OF THE ROOKERIES.—TIf, then, a plan or map of each rookery be made every year, showing accurately its size and form, when at its greatest expansion, which is between the 10th and 25th of July annually, a comparison of this map will give the relative number of the breeding-seals as they increase or diminish from year to year. I submit with this report maps of St. Paul and St. George islands, showing the extended location of breedirg-rookeries, and hauling-grounds upon them. These maps are from surveys made in July, 1874, a] THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 105 by Mr. Elliott and myself, and a map of each rookery on both islands drawn from careful surveys made by Mr. Elliott in 1872, show them now as they were in the season of 1874 as compared with that of 1872. I respectfully recommend that enlarged copies of these latter maps be furnished to the government agents in charge of the islands, and that they be required to compare them each year with the respective rookeries, and note what change in size and form, if any, exists upon them. This, if carefully done, will afford data, after a time, by which the seal fisheries can be regulated with comparative certainty, so as to produce the greatest revenue to the government, without injury to this valuable interest. NUMBER OF SEALS KILLED.—Since 1870 there have been killed, on both islands, 112,000 young male seals each year. Whether this slaughter has prevented the seals from increasing in numbers or not, and, if so, to what extent, can only be deduced from their past history, which gnfortunately is very imperfectly given. In 1836 to 1839 there were fewer seals upon the islands than had ever been seen before since their first discovery in 1786. On St. Pau] island, then, there were not more than twelve or fifteen thousand of all kinds. The killing of them was then stopped, and not resumed until 1845, when it was done gradually, and, as had never been the case before, only the young males were killed. The rookeries continued to increase in size until 1857, since which time they have remained in about the same aggregate, although a less number of bachelor seals were killed yearly between 1857 and 1868 than have been slaughtered since. THOUGHTS ON THEIR INCREASE AND DIMINUTION FOR THE FUTURE.—This would seem to show that there is a limit beyond which they will not increase, and that this limit, a natural one, has been reached. If they could be under our control and protection at all times, and if a sufiicient supply of food for them could be procured, we would doubtless be able to cause them to multiply, for there are more of both sexes born each year than are necessary to meet the losses from the natural causes of death, such as old age, diseases, and accidents, and, in reality, we do not even know where they are and what they are about for seven months in each year, while we do know that they have deadly enemies, which make sad havoc, particularly among the pups and yearlings, inas- much as a single killer-whale has been found to have as many as 16 young seals in its stomach, when destroyed and opened for examination. THE EXTENT OF HUMAN PROTECTION.—Our protection of them can only be partial; that is to say, we can limit the number to be killed when they are within our reach, and prevent their being dispersed on the breeding rookeries, or driven from the islands. On the other hand, the question raised is, whether the killing of the number above mentioned has had, or has not had, the effect of decreasing the aggregate number of seals. Judging from the comparison between the maps of the rookeries as they were in 1872, and the condition of the rookeries themselves as surveyed, and from the testimony of the best informed men on the island, both whites and natives, I think it has not as yet. Sinte the young males alone are killed, injury would be effected through this action, if it did not allow a sufficient number to reach that maturity necessary for the satisfaction of all demands of the breeding females on the rookeries. The young males do not grow strong enough to reach the rookeries until they are at least six years old; hence, the effect of the first year’s killing cannot be seen in that connection until the pups have attained this age. For that reason it seems to me that it is now a little too soon to decide whether we are killing too many or not, since the present conduct of affairs has now been only four years in opevation. It is possible, however, that more, even twice as many as are now killed annually, might be taken every year without injury, but it would be making a severe and most hazardous experiment before any definite result has been obtained from the first, which is now in operation. The number now killed annually is entirely experimental, because we have nothing to start from in the past as a basis of estimation for the future until the effect produced is satisfactorily shown. I would, therefore, not recommend an extension of the contract as to the number of seals to be killed until within seven or eight years from the date of the one now existing went into effect, when, if the rookeries have not decreased in size, it can then safely be done. THE LEASE OF THE ISLANDS.—In June, 1870, Congress passed an act entitled ‘An Act to prevent the extermination of the fur-bearing animals in Alaska”, which authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to lease to private parties for a term of years the right to engage in the business of taking fur-seals on the islands of S* Paul and St. George, under certain specified conditions and restrictions. Therefore, the subject was publicly advertised, and bids solicited, the privilege to be awarded to the highest responsible bidder. A number of individuals doing business in San Francisco under the firm-name of the ‘‘ Alaska Commercial Company” were the successful bidders, and the right was granted to them under the terms of the lease now in force (a copy of which is here annexed) for a period of twenty years, from the 1st day of May, 1870. The terms were not arranged and the lease delivered until the 31st day of August, 1870, and the vessels and agents of the company did not reach the islands until the 1st of October. The season allowed by law for killing seals being nearly over, but few skins, consequently, were taken by the company that year (3,448 on St. Paul, and 5,789 on St. George island). But the following and each succeeding year they have taken nearly the full number. When the lease was made it was erroneously supposed that there were about one-third as many seals on St. George island as there were on St. Paul, and, in consequence of this understanding, the number td be taken from each island was fixed at 25,000 and 75,000 respectively. In reality there are only about one-eighteenth as many on the former as on the latter, which fact having been clearly shown by Mr. Elliott, the power was given to the 106 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. ir Secretary of the Treasury by Congress to change the ratio on each island to a correct basis. In consideration ot being the only company allowed to take fur-seals on the islands, it has agreed to pay a yearly rental for the use of - them, and a tax or duty upon each skin taken and shipped from them; not to kill more than the stipulated number of seals, and seals of a particular kind; not to molest them on the rookeries or in the water, and to do nothing which would tend to frighten them from the islands, to provide for the comfort, maintenance, education, and protection of the native inhabitants, and neither to furnisb nor allow any of its agents to use distilled spirits ov spirituous liquors, or to supply them to any of the natives. EMPLOYES OF THE ALASKA COMMERCIAL CoMPANY.—The company employs on St. Paul an agent who has general charge of the business on both islands, three assistants, a physician, a school teacher, three carpenters, a cooper, a steward, and a cook; and on St. George,gan agent, a pliysician, a school teacher, and a cook. CONDUC? OF THE SEALING.—The great work of the season, the taking and curing of seal-skins, begins the first week in June, and is pushed forward as rapidly as possible, as the skins arein the best condition early in the season. This year 90,000 skins were taken on St. Paul by eighty-four men in thirty-nine days. The natives do all the work of driving, killing, and skinning the seals, and of curing and bundling the skins, under the direction of the company’s agents and of their own chiefs. The first operation is that of driving the seals from the hawing- to the killing-grounds. The latter are near the salt-houses, which are built at points most convenient tor shipping the skins, and all the killing is done upox them, in order not to disturb the other seals, and to save the labor of carrying the skins. The seals suitable for killing (which are the young males from two to six years old) are readily collected into droves upon the hunting-grounds by getting between them and the water, and are driven as easily as a flock of sheep. They meve in a clumsy gallop, their bellies being raised entirely from the ground, upon their flippers, which gives them, when in motion, the appearance of bears. They are sometimes called ‘sea-bears” on account of this resemblance. In driving them care is taken not to hurry them, for if driven too fast they crowd together and injure the skins by biting each other, and also become overheated and exhausted. They are driven from one-half mile to five miles in from three to thirty-six hours, according to the location of the hauling-grounds. After reaching the killing-grounds they are allowed to rest and cool for several hours, particularly if the drive has been a long one. The drives vary in number from five hundred to as many thousand, as there happen to be few or many seals upon the hauling-ground where the drive is made. In each drive there are some seals that are either so large or so small that their skins are not desirable, and sometimes a few females are driven up, not often, however, as they seldom stray from the rookeries. All such are singled out aud permitted to escape to the water. The killing is done with a blow on the head by a stout. club, which crushes the skull, after which the skins are taken off and carried into the salt-houses. During the first half of the month of June, from five to eight per cent. of the seals in the drive are turned away, being either too small or too large, and from ten to twelve per cent. during the latter half. In July the percentage is still greater, being about forty per cent. for the first and from sixty to seventy-five per cent. for the latter half. About one-half the seals killed are about three years old, one-fourth four, and the remainder two, five, and six. No yearlings have been killed up to the present time, though allowed by the lease, as their skins are too small to be saleabie in the present state of the trade, but by some change in it they may become desirable in the future and would then be taken. This would, however, injure the fisheries, because the yearlings of both sexes haul together, and it would be almost impossible to separate them so as to kill only the males. There has been a waste in taking the skins, due partly to the inexperience of the company’s agent, and partly to accident and the carelessness of the natives. In making the drive, particularly if they are long, and the sun happens to pierce through the fog, some of the seals become exhausted and die at such a distance from the salt-houses that their skins cannot well be carried to them by hand, and are therefore left upon the bodies. This was remedied during the last killing-season, by having a horse and cart to follow the drive and to collect such skins. Some skins have also been lost by killmg more seals at a time than the force of men employed could take care of properly. Good judgment and constant care are required in taking the skins, as fifteen minutes’ exposure to the sun will spoil them, by loosening the fur. Another source of waste is_ by cutting the skins in taking them off in such a manner as to ruin them. It was very difficult at first to induee the natives to use their knives carefully, and several hundred skins were lost in a season by careless skinning; but by refusing to accept aud pay for badly-cut skins, the number has been greatly reduced, so that the loss this year on St. Paul was but one hundred and thirty from all causes. The salt-houses are arranged with large bins called kenches, made of thick planks, into which the skins are put, fur-side down, with a layer of salt between each two layers of skins. They become sufficiently cured in from five to seven days, and are then taken from the kenches and piled up in “books”, with a little fresh salt. Finally they are prepared for shipment by rolling them into compact bundles, two skins in each, which are secured with stout lashings. The largest of these bundles weigh sixty-four pounds, but their average weight is but twenty-two. The smallest skins, those taken from seals two years old, weigh about seven pounds each, and the largest, from seals six years old, about thirty. COUNTING THE SKINS.—The skins are counted four times at the island, as follows: by the company’s agent and the native chiefs when they are put into the salt-houses, the latter giving in their accounts, after each day’s killing, to the government agent; again when they are bundled by the natives, who do the work, as each is paid for his labor by the bundle; by the government agents when they are taken from the salt-houses for shipment, and the , “THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 107 fourth time by the first officer of the company’s steamer, as they are delivered on board. An official certificate of the number of skins shipped is made out and signed by the government agents in triplicate, one copy being sent to the Treasury Department, one to the collector of San Francisco, the third given to the master of the vessel in which they are shipped. The amount of the tax or duty paid by the company to the government is determined by the result of a final counting at the custom-house in San Francisco. The books of the company show that it has paid into the treasury since the date of the lease (up to the present writing, November 30, 1874),$170,480 54 on account of the rental of the islands, and $1,057,709 74 as tax on the seal-skins taken. The latter sum is less by $16,458 63 than the tax that should have been paid had oue hundred thousand skins been taken each year since 1870, or, in other words, 6,269 fewer skins have beeu shipped than the law permitted. The record kept at the islands by both the government’s and company’s agents shows that in 1871 but 19,077 skins were taken from St. George instead of 25,000, the legal number allowed, and that every year since the number shipped has fallen a little short of 100,000. PoLicy OF THE ALASKA CoMMERCIAL Company.—The company has wisely adopted a fair and liberal policy in its dealings with the natives, and is more than repaid for the expense incurred by the increased ease and rapidity with which they work while taking skins. I examined carefully the books and papers of the company, both at its office in San Francisco and upon the island; also the record kept by the government agents, and talked privately with the most intelligent of the natives, but I was unable to discover by so doing that there has been any fraud practiced toward the government, or want of compliance with the terms of the lease. The natives keep a jealous watch upon the seals, being fully impressed with the fact that their welfare depends upon the safety of the fisheries, and they are also well informed in regard to all laws and contracts which have been made by the government concerning them. TREATMENT OF THE NATIVES BY THE COMPANY.—The lease requires that provision be made by the company for the comfort, maintenance, education, and protection of the native inhabitants of the islands. The natives do all the work of taking and curing the seal-skins, for which they are paid by the company forty cents a skin. This produces each year a fund of $40,000, which is divided between the inhabitants of the two islands, according to the number of skins taken from each, which gives $30,000 to the people of St. Paul, and $10,000 to those of St. George. In addition to this, they are paid forty cents apiece for sea-lion skins, ten cents for their throats, and $5 a barrel for theirintestines. As this sum is earned by the joint labor of all the able-bodied men, it is considered a common fund, to be divided equitably among them. Payment is made for all other labor to each individual performing it at established rates. In dividing the sealing fund, the ability of the sealers is considered, and the division made accordingly. Thus the strongest and most skillful men, who work the entire season, receive a first class skare. Those who are less skillful, and the old men who are unable to do the harder part of the work, receive second and third shares, while the boys who take part in the sealing for the first time receive a fourth class share. The assignment of shares is made by the chiefs and acquiesced in by the others. Each year, after all the skins have been taken, the chiefs furnish the company’s agents with a list of the men who have been engaged in sealing during the season, and the share assigned to each. The second, third, and fourth class are, respectively, 90, 80, and 70 per cent. of the first class share. Two first class shares are voluntarily given for the support of the church, and one for that of the priest. The value of the shares varies a little from year to year, with the number of men engaged in sealing. This year (1874) it was for each, respectively, 3429 53, $568 58, $343 62, and $300 63. The result of the division is formally made to the people by the company’s agents, through the chiefs and in the presence of the government’s agents. These sums are not paid at the time to the natives, but are placed to their credit in the book of the company and in pass-books which are furnished to each man. All other labor is paid for in coin when performed, at the rate of from 6 to 10 cents an hour, according to the nature of the work, except that of bundling skins, which is at the rate of 1 cent a bundle. The first chief is paid a monthly salary of $15, and each of the others, three in number, one of $10, in addition to their shares of the sealing fund. Other natives, men and women, employed throughout the year in other capacities, receive from $4 to $30 a month and board. THE COMPANY’S STORE.—Olothing, provisions, and other articles are kept in the company’s store-houses on the island, and are sold to the natives at prices not exceeding those for which the same could be bought at retail in San Francisco. I examined the goods, and found them to be of good quality. The people have but little idea of economy, and would spend all their money in a short time for certain articles of which they are fond, hence it is necessary to limit their sale, such as butter, sugar, and perfumery. They are encouraged to save money by the company, which receives deposits from them, subject to the usual rules of “savings banks”, and pays an interest of 9 per cent. per anuum. Deposits range from $100 to $1,100. The church has a deposit of $8,000. Some are in debt to the company, but become less so every year. Such as are without means of support, widows and orphan children, are supported by the company. SANITARY ADVANCEMENT.—The natives live partly in “barrabaras,” or earth-houses, and partly in comfortaple frame-houses. Thirty of the latter have been built within the last two years by the company, and given rent free. Others are being built as rapidly as possible, it being the intention of the company to give each family a house. The lease requires the annual delivery upon the island of sixty cords of fire-wood, and twenty-five thousand dried \ 108 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. fa salmon, for the use of the natives; but, with the consent of the Secretary of the Treasury, coal, ton for cord, has been substituted for the former, and an equivalent quantity of salted salmon and codfish for the latter. Both have been regularly supplied, as shown by the receipts of the government agent and the statements of the natives, together with as much salt and as many barrels as have been desired for curing and storing their seal-meat. Two physicians are in the employ of the company, one residing on each island, who are charged with the care of the sick, and have already, by their efforts, seconded by the example of the other white residents, induced greater cleanliness and a more healthful mode of living among the natives. ScHOOL ATTENDANCGE.—The education of the native children has not been neglected, though so far the attempt to teach them has not been as successful as could be desired. For each island a competent teacher, a convenient and well-warmed school-room, and a supply of school-books, etc., have been provided every year from the first of October until the first of June, but the difficulty has been to induce the parents to send their chidren, as they do not think them able to learn both English and Russian, and as the latter is the language of their church they consider it the most important. The average attendance at the school on St. George has been but five or six, while there are from thirty to forty children, and on St. Paul but four or five, with from forty to fifty children. Last year on the latter island there was a better attendance, and the children made considerable progress. The prejudice of the older people seems likely to wear away, as they learn a little English themselves from constantly hearing it, and will doubtless disappear after a time. TERMS OF THE SEAL-ISLAND LEASE FROM THE GOVERNMENT.—This indenture in duplicate, made this 3d day of August, A. D. 1870, by and between William A. Richardson, Acting Secretary of the Treasury, in pursuance of an act of Congress approved July 1, 1870, entitled ‘‘An act to prevent the extermination of fur-bearing animals in Alaska,” and the Alaska Commercial Company, a corporation duly established under the laws of the state of California, acting by John F. Miller, its president and agent, in accordance with a resolution at a meeting of its board of trustees, held January 31, 1870, witnesseth : That said secretary hereby leases to the said Alaska Commercial Company, without power of transfer, for the term of twenty years from the Ist day of May, 1870, the right to engage in the business of taking fur-seals on the islands of St. George and St. Paul within the territory of Alaska, and to send a yessel or vessels to said island for the skins of such seals. And the said Alaska Commercial Company, in consideration of their right under this lease, hereby covenant and agree to pay, for each year during said term and in proportion during any part thereof, the sum of $55,000 into the Treasury of the United States in accordance with the regulations of the secretary to be made for this purpose under said act, which payment shall be secured by deposit of United States bonds to that amount, and also covenant and agree to pay annually into the Treasury of the United States, under said rules and regulations, an internal-revenue tax or duty of $2 for each seal-skin taken and shipped by them in accordance with the provisions of the act aforesaid, ard also the sum of 60} cents for each fur-seal skin taken aud shipped, and 55 cents per gallon for each gallon of oil obtained from said seals, for sale in said islands or elsewhere, and sold by said company; and also covenant and agree, in accordance with said rules and regulations, to furnish, free of charge, the inhabitants of the islands of St. Paul and St. George annually during said term 25,000 dried salmon, 60 cords fire-wood, and a sufficient quantity of salt and a sufficient quantity of barrels for preserving the necessary supply of meat. And the said lessees also hereby covenant and agree during the term aforesaid to maintain a school on each island, iv accordance with said rules and regulations and suitable for the education of the natives of said islands, for a period of uot less than eight months in each year. And the said lessees further covenant and agree not kill upon said island of St. Paul more than seventy-five thousand fur-seals, and upon the island of St. George not more than twenty-five thousand fur-seals per annum; nof to kill any fur-seal upon the islands aforesaid in any other month except the months of June, July, September, and October of each year; not to kill said seals at any time by the use of fire-arms or means tending to drive said seals from said islands; not to kill any female seals or seals under one year old; not to kill any seal in waters adjacent to said islands, or on the beach, cliffs, or rocks, where they haul up from the sea to remain. And the said lessees further covenant and agree to abide by any restriction or limitation upon the right to Ixill seals under this lease that the act prescribes, or that the Secretary of the Treasury shall judge necessary for the preservation of such seals. And the said lessees hereby agree that they will not in any way sell, transfer, or assign this lease, and that any transfer, sale, or assignment of the same shall be void and of no effect. _ And the said lessees further agree to furnish to the several masters of the vessels employed by them certified copies of this lease, to be presented to the government revenue officers for the time being in charge of said islands, as the authority of said lessees for the landing and taking of said skins. And the said lessees further covenant and agree that they or their agents shall not keep, sell, furnish, give, or dispose of any distilled spirituous liquors on either of said islands to any of the natives thereof, such person not being a physician and furnishing the same for use as medicine. And the said lessees further covenant and agree that this lease is accepted, subject to all needful rules and regulations which shall at any time or times hereafter be made by the Secretary of the Treasury for the collection and payment of the rental herein agreed to be paid by said lessees for the comfort, maintenance, education, and protection of the natives of said islands, and for carrying into effect all the provisions of the act aforesaid, ‘and will abide by and conform to said rules and regulations. And the said lessees, accepting this lease with a full knowledge of the provisions of the aforesaid act of Congress, farther covenant and agree that they will fallfil all the provisions, requirements, and limitations of said act, whether herein specifically set ont or not. In witness whereof the parties aforesaid have hereunto set their hands and seals the day and year above written. WILLIAM A. RICHARDSON, [SEAL] Acting Secretary of the Treasury. Executed in presence of— J. H. SAVILLE. ALASKA COMMERCIAL COMPANY, By JOHN F. MILLER, President. [SEAL.] Plate XXVI. < iL OU Cae Nya (etl tite, Z\\) | Wy oa a ettltin, AN) Ly ij Ya ee Me Mee iN A FUR-SEAL, as drawn by C. Landseer, 1848. “©. nigra—Black Otary.” [Eneyelo. Metropolitana, London, 1848, Fig. 2, pl. ix, p. 109 ] [Evidently drawn from an alcoholic or air-dried specimen of an Arctocephalus pup, in its black natal coat.—H. W. E.] THE FUR-SEAL. (Callorhinus ursinus.) by Sidney Edwards based upon Steller’s description, published as ‘‘Phoca ursina” in the [Fac-simile of a figure engraved on steel from a drawing cures of the Fur-seal given to the world prior to my life-studies on Book of Nature, vol. i, pl. 53, Phila., 1834. This is, in its aggregate, one of the best fi the Pribyloy Islands, 1872-’76, inclusive-—H. W. E.] Monograph—SEAL-ISLANDS. ~ eh , THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA 109 21—EPITOME OF SPECIAL REPORTS UPON THE SEAL-ISLANDS IN THE ARCHIVES OF THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT. THE OFFICIAL FILES OF THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT.—The first direct reports received by the government from its agents were those of Charles Bryant and H. H. McIntyre, each dated November 30, 1869, and addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury; they were published by order of Congress January 26, 1870. (See Ex. Doe. No. 32, 41st Congress, 2d session.) The references made to the seal-life in these documents are very brief and general. On the 30th December, 1870, the next communication from the seal-islands touching the condition of the animals, etc., was received by the Treasury Department from its agent, Mr. 8S. N. Biiynitsky; it is a very brief review of the whole state of affairs. (See Ex. Doc. No. 83, 44th Congress, Ist session, pp. 41 and 44 inclusive.) This is followed on November 10, 1871, by another report upon the same subject by Charles Bryant, still brief and general. (Ex. Doe. No. 83, 44th Congress, 1st session, pp. 59 and 66 inclusive.) It is a mere synopsis of the success of the sealing season, and is followed by another routine report by the same author, dated August 15, 1872, of the same vague and general tenor. A series of brief annual reports of this character by the agents of the Treasury Department have been annually received by the government from Messrs. Bryant, Morton, and Otis, respectively, up to date, being all restricted to short business recapitulations of the season’s work in sealing, condition of the natives, etc.; they are supplemented and illustrated by the reports made by the assistant special agents of the Treasury Department, who address their communications to the treasury agent in charge, or chief special officer of the government. The last two annual reports of Colonel Otis, special agent Treasury Department, are elaborated in regard to the details of sealing-labor and figures of the progress of the work itself. He gives no special attention to the life and habits of the fur-seal in his communication to the Secretary. I. ILLUSTRATIVE AND SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES. 22, THE RUSSIAN SEAL-ISLANDS, BERING AND COPPER, OR THE COMMANDER GROUP. EXTRACTED FROM PROFESSOR NORDENSKIOLD’S REPORT IN REFERENCE TO BERING ISLAND ~ [Translated by Capt. G. Niebaum. ] ARRIVAL OF NORDENSKIOLD: LOCATION OF BERING ISLAND.—The Vega anchored on the 14th August, 1879, i a rather poor, open harbor on the northwest coast of the island: Bering island is the most westerly of the Aleutian islands, and is situated nearest Kamtchatka; it does not belong, nor does the neighboring Copper island, to America, but to Asia, and is controlled by Russia; nevertheless, the American Alaska Company have obtained the hunting privilege, and maintain here a not inconsiderable trading-station, which consists of about 300 inhabitants, supplying them with provisions and manufactured goods, and from them in turn receiving their labor, pally rendered in taking skins Oe the eared-seal, or sea-bear (Otaria Up siEa) ; between 40,000 and 100,000* of = These figures are in error; the table given at t the close of this jmaeeae will show it. It is pau known that the hike as it bred, was first seen and described by Steller, who wrote his description on this island, when shipwrecked there with Bering, in 1741~42. Steller’s account and the stories of the survivors drew a large concourse of rapacious hunters to the Commander islands; they appear, as near as I can arrive at truths, from the scanty record, to have quickly exterminated the sea-otters, and to have killed many and harrassed the other fur-seals entirely away from the island; so that there was an interregnum between 1760 and 1786, during which time the Russian promyshleniks took no fur-seals, and were utterly at loss to know whither these creatures had fled from the islands of Bering and Copper. When they (the seals) began to revisit their haunts on the Commander islands, I can find no specific date; but I am inclined to believe that they did not reappear on Bering and Copper islands to anything like the number seen by Steller, until 1837~38; perhaps have not done so until.quite recently. At least, in 1867, the Russians did not think more than 20,000 skins could be secured there annually, while they declared 100,000 could be taken readily at the Pribylovs; again, since 1867 the capacity of the Commander group has gradually increased from 15,000 to 20,000, then to 40,000 and 50,000 “‘ holluschickie” perannum. Now, this striking improvement is due, doubtless, to the superior treatment of the whole business by the Alaska Commercial Company, which had also leased these interests from the Russian government in 1871 for a term of 20 years. I think, therefore, that when the fur-seals on the Commander islands became so ruthlessly hunted and harrassed shortly after Steller’s observations in 1742, then they soon repaired, or rather most of the survivors did, to the shelter and isolation of the Pribylovy group, which was wholly unknown to man; and it remained so until 1786~87. Then succeeded a period between, up to 1842-45, when the unhappy seals had but little rest or choice between the Commander and the Pribylov islands, and must have sadly diminished, as the record shows, in numbers. The unfortunate overland journey of Steller, which alternately starved and froze him into a low fever that ended his young and promising life in a yourt on the Siberian steppes, November 12, 1745, six years prior to the first publication of his celebrated notes on the 110 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. et these animals are killed yearly on this and the neighboring Copper island; those are the animals from which is obtained the brown, silky, soft seal-skin, which of late has become so fashionable. In order to watch over the interest of the Russian government and to maintain order, there are also a few Russian officers stationed here. SKETCH OF THE VILLAGE.—A half dozen convenient wooden houses are here erected, used for warehouses and stores, also for the use of servants of the Russian government and of the company. The natives live partly in adobe houses, quite roomy and not unpleasant inside; partly in small wooden houses which the company are gradually endeavoring to introduce, instead of turf houses, by yearly importing and giving away a few such houses. to the most deserving ones of the inhabitants. A church for Greek-Catholic service is also there, and a roomy school-. house intended for children of the Aleutians. Unfortunately, the school was now closed, but to judge from the- copy-books which were lying around in the school-room, the teaching here is not to be despised. Atleast the writing proofs were conspicuous for their cleanliness, absence of school blots, and an exceedingly even and beautiful handwriting. At the “colony” the houses are collected in one place in a village, which, from the sea, has the appearance somewhat of a small Norwegian fisherman village. Beside these, a few scattered houses are to be found here and there on other parts of the island, as, for instance, on the northeast side, where cultivation of potatoes is carried on on a small scale, at the hunting-place on the north side, where a couple of large warehouses and a number of very small underground houses are to be found, and are used only during the killing-season. DISCOVERY OF THE ISLAND.—Geographically, as well as in regard to natural history, Bering island is one of the mostcurious islands in the northern part of the Pacific ocean. It was here where Bering, after his last (lisastrous voyage in this sea, which now bears his name, on the 19th of December, 1741, finished his long career as a (liscoverer, Shortly after his ship, during a storm, crushed against the cliffs on the north coast of the island. Many of his fellow-travelers survived him, among them the learned naturalist Steller, who left a masterly description, seldom equaled, of the natural history of this island, where he involuntarily spent his time from the middle of November, 1741, to the end of August, 1742. As far as is known, Bering island had never before been visited by man. It was the desire to obtain for our museums the skins and skeletons of the many curious mammiferous animals existing here, as also to compare the present condition of the island, since it hes nearly a century and a half been mercilessly exposed to hunting and the cupidity of mankind, with the vivacious and striking description left by Steller, which prompted me to put down on our traveling plan a visit to the island. The news I gathered ov Bering island from American papers, about the uneasiness which our wintering in the Arctic had created in Europe, really prevented me from remaining here as long as I should have wished; but, nevertheless, our collections and observations are exceedingly valuable. CHANGES SINCE STELLER’S TIME.—Since the time of Steller, the animal life has undergone a considerable change on the island. Foxes (or, more correctly, ‘“fjellrackor”, Swedish) existed then in unusual numbers. Not alone did they eat up everything that could be eaten at all which was left outside, but they forced themselves in the houses during the day as well as night, and carried away anything they could, even articles that could be of no use to them, such as knives, sticks, sacks, shoes, and socks. It became necessary, when doing certain things out of doors, to drive them away with sticks, and at last they beeame—through the slyness and cunning with which they managed to consummate their thieving, and the cleverness with which they combined their efforts to attain objects which they alone could not accomplish—really dangerous, mischief-making animals for the castaways. Since then thousands upon thousands have been taken here by fur-hunters. Now they are so rare that during our stay here we did not see a single animal. The remaining ones are said not to have the formerly so commonly-seen black- blue coat, but the white. which is not very costly. On the neighboring Copper island there are still considerable numbers of black-blue foxes. Steller and his fellow-travelers killed here in 1741~’42, seven hundred sea-otters. This animal, known for its very costly and fine fur, is now entirely driven from Bering island. Of sea-lions, Otaria Stelleri, which were formerly very numerous, but few now visit this place; also sea-bears, Otaria ursina, and finally, the most curious of all the former mammaiia on Bering island, the great sea-cow, is now altogether extinct. MARINE “NEAT CATTLE”.—Steller’s sea-cow, Rhytina Stelleri, took the place, in a certain way, of the hoofed animal among the sea-mammalia. It was of a nut-brown color and covered with hair which had grown together into an outer hide, much like the bark of an old oak tree. Its length was, according to Steller, even to 35 feet, and its weight almost five hundred hundred weight. The head was large, neck short, hardly distinguishable, forepart of body very thick, but suddenly narrowing backward. It had two short fore-legs, which terminated abruptly Without any fingers or nails, but with close-gathered bristle hair; hind-legs were missing altogether and replaced by a tail-fin, something like the whale. Teats, which were very rich in milk with the females, had their places between the forelegs. The flesh and milk resembled very much that of neat-cattle; it was even better than the latter, acvording to Steller. “a sea-bears” of Bering island, often occurs sadly to my mind in this connection ; for, undoubtedly, had he lived then to have reached St. Petersburg, whither he was bound, he would have enlarged and polished these items, which now appear in the Proceedings of the Imperial Academy, 1751, just as he had roughly drafted them in the field, May and June, 1742. This revision of his field jottings would have undoubtedly supplied many links now missing to the disconnected history of the seal-life on the Commander islands, as it presents itself to us at this late day.—H. W. E. THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 111 The sea-cows were almost constantly occupied in feeding on those sea-weeds found in abundance along the coast, in doing which they moved neck and head as an ox. They showed great gluttony, and were not disturbed in the jeast by the presence of people. It was possible to go up to and even to touch them without their being scared or seeming to mind it. Toward each other they showed great affection, and when one was harpooned the others made unusual efforts to save it. When Steller was there these animals collected in great herds as neat-cattle, grazing everywhere along the shores. A great number were killed by Steller and his companions. Later the hunt for these animals was an important food-item for those Russians who sailed from Kamtchatka to the Aleutian islands. Hundreds were killed yearly, and it was soon exterminated, as it existed, if we except a few animals gone astray, at that time only on Bering island. According to what Middendorf quotes from the very careful researches which the celebrated academicians vy. Baer and v. Brandt had made, the sea-cow had not been seen before Steller’s time, 1741, and the last was said to have been killed in 1768. During the many investigations I made among the natives, I obtained reliable information that the sea-cow had been killed much later. A “creole” (i. ¢., a mixture of Russian and Aleut), who is pow sixty-seven years old, of clever appearance and perfect mental condition, said that his father died in 1847, aged eighty-eight. The father was from Wolhynien, and came to Bering island when eighteen years of age, that is, in 1777. The first two or three years (that is, 1779 or 1780) after his arrival, they used to kill sea-cows as they grazed at low-water mark. Only the heart was eaten; the hide was used for badarrahs. In consequence of its thickness it was*split in two parts. Two such split hides were sufficient to cover a badarrah of 20 feet length, 74 feet width, and 3 feet depth. After that time none of these animals had been killed. LAST SIGHT OF SEA-COW HERE.—It is surmised that a sea-cow had shown itself much later around the island. Two “creoles”, Teodor Merchenin and Stepnoff, saw, about twenty-five years ago, at Tolstoi Mees, on the east of the island, an animal which they did not know; it was very thick forward and tapered backward, had small fore- feet, and showed itself about 15 feet above the water, rising and again sinking. It blew, not through a blow-hole, but through its mouth, which was somewhat elongated. Its color was brown, with large light spots. It had no fin on the back, but when it raised itself it was possible to see the vertebrze lumps, in consequence of its very lean condition. I made a very thorough examination of the two tales-men. Their story agreed fully, and appeared as if entitled to be given credence. One of the Alaska company’s hide-examiners, Mr. Ohsche, a native of Lifland and for the present living on Copper island, told me that bones of the sea-cow could be found on the west side of Copper island, in the center. Again, it is said that no bones exist on the little islet, opposite the colony, although bones are plenty on the neighboring beach on the main island. This is the meager information I could gather from the natives and other people residing here about the animal. But I was very fortunate in being able to collect a very large and beautiful assortment of skeleton parts. NORDENSKIOLD’S SUCCESS IN GETTING ITS BONES.—When I first made the acquaintance of the Europeans living on the island, I was told that there was a very poor show for making any large collections. The company had in vain offered 150 rubles for a skeleton. But after I had been ashore a few hours I already found out that larger and smaller collections of bones were to be found here and there in the huts of the natives. Those I bought, paying purposely for them in such a way that the seller was more than satisfied, and his neighbor a little enyions. A large portion of the male population now commenced very zealously to hunt for bones, and in this mauner I got together twenty-one casks, large boxes, and barrels full of Rhytina bones, among them many very extensive bone-collections from the same animal, two whole, very pretty, and several more or less damaged skulls, ete. BONES OF THE EXTINCT SEA-COW OF STELLER.—Rhytina bones are not lying near the water-edge, but on a beach-shelf, 6 to 10 feet high, thickly covered with grass. They are usually covered with a layer of earth débris of 1 to 14 feet thickness, and in order to find them we had to explore the ground with a bayonet or a sharp iron, as it would have been too laborious to dig up the whole grass layer. A person very soon gets accustomed to distingnish, by the sound or the feeling of the bayonet, whether he has struck against a stone, a piece of wood, or a piece of bone. In consequence of their hard ivory-like condition, the Rhytina bones are used by the natives for sleigh-runners and for carvings. They are, therefore, already to a great extent used up and rarer than other bones. The bones from the finger seem in most cases to be entirely destroyed, and the same is the case with the extreme tail-parts. FUR-SEALS ON BERING ISLAND.—The only large animal which still exists on the island, in perhaps as large numbers as at the time of Steller, is the sea-bear, Otaria ursina. Even that had decreased so that the yearly catch was a very inconsiderable one, when the Alaska Company obtained the exclusive privilege for hunting, by a payment to the Russian government of, if I remember right, two rubles for each animal killed. The hunting was then organized on a more advantageous basis. At certain periods of the year the animals are now altogether unmolested. The number of animals to be killed is settled beforehand, just the same as the farmer in the fall of the year (slaughtering-time, Swedish custom) is in the habit of doing with his cattle. After that is done, the animals condemned to death are selected as well as can be done in a hurry, but animals with poor skin, old females and pups, are liberated. Those numerous flocks of sea-bears, which are found on the shores of Bering and Copper islands, are consequently handled nearly the same as a herd of tame animals. This can only be done in that manner, because 112 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. ~ the animals are in the habit of spending several months of the year, almost without interruption* and without eating any food, on certain long, rocky spits running out into the sea from those islands. They congregate here in hundreds of thousands, in closely packed flocks on the beach. On those places it is strictly prohibited to hunt the animal or to disturb it during its rest, without special permission from the village foreman, who is selected by the Aleuts living in the place. Whena number of sea-bears are to be killed, a flock is surrounded by a sufficient number of hunters and are driven with sticks up on the grass a short distance from the beach. Then females and young ones, and those males whose fur-coat is not desirable, are driven away. The remaining ones are stunned first with 2 blow on the nose, and then stabbed with a knife. INSPECTION OF A ROOKERY,—Accompanied by the village foreman, a black-haired stuttering Aleut, and the ““Oossac”, a young, neat, and polite man, who on special occasions carries a saber of nearly his own length, but who otherwise not in the least answered to the Cossac type accepted by writers of novels and dramas, a few of us visited a spit sticking out in the sea from the north side of the island, which is a favorite resting-place for sea-bears. Just at that time there were, in accordance with surely overestimated statements which we received, 200,000 animals congregated at the spit and neighboring beaches. Accompanied by our guides we received permission to crawl close on to a flock lying a little separate. The older animals were a little uneasy at first, when they noticed that we crawled near them, but they very soon settled down again, and we now had the pleasure of a peculiar spectacle. We were the only spectators. The scene consisted of a stone-covered beach wreathed with foaming breakers, the background of the unmeasurable sea, and the actors thousands of curiously-formed animals. A number of old males were lying still and immovable, unconcerned about what went on around them. Others crawled on their short, small legs clumsily among the rocks on the beach, or swam with incredible suppleness among the breakers, playing, cooing with each other, and quarreling. In one place two older animals fought with a peculiar wheezing noise, in a manner as if the fighting had taken place with studied positions for attack and defense. In another, a sham fight between an old animal anda pup. It appeared as if that one was receiving lessons in the art of fencing. Everywhere the little black pups were crawling friskily to and fro between the others, now and then bleating like lambs calling their mothers. Often the pups are crushed by the old, when scared by some untoward circumstance they rush out in the sea. Hundreds of dead pups are found after such an alarm on the beach. “Only” 13,000 animals had been killed this year. Their skinned carcasses were lying heaped in the grass on the beach, spreading a disagreeable smell far and wide, which after all did not scare the comrades lying on neighboring points, because among them a similar smell prevailed on account of the many dead animals remaining on the beach, either crushed or dead from natural causes. Among this large herd of sea-bears a single sea-lion was enthroned on top of a high rock, the only one of those animals which we had seen during our travel. - Against payment of 40 rubles I prevailed on the village chief to prepare for me four skeletons of those half rotten carcasses lying in the grass, and afterward I received, through the kindness of the Russian authorities and without any compensation, for stuffing, six animals, among them two live pups. Even those we had to kill, after in vain having tried to make them take food. One of them will be brought home, in alcohol, for anatomical investigation. CHARACTER OF BERING ISLAND.—That part of Bering island which we saw is composed of a platean resting on volcanic mountains,t which in many places is broken by deep cations. In their bottoms are usually found lakes, which through smaller or larger streams connect with the sea. The border of the lakes and the mountain slopes are covered with a rich vegetation of long grass and beautiful flowers, among which a sword lily, that is cultivated in our gardens, the useful dark-red brown Savannah lily, several orchids, two kinds of rhododendrons, large flowers, umbellifers the height of a man, sunflowers like Synanthams, ete. j An entirely different kind of flora prevailed on the islet which lies outside the harbor. Toporkoff islet consists of an eruptive rock, which everywhere toward the shores, a few score yards from high- water mark, rises up in the form of abrupt, low, cracked walls from 5 to 10 meters in height, differing in different — places. Above those abrupt mountain walls the surface of the island is formed of an even plane; what lies below, forms a gradually sloping beach. The gradually sloping beach consists of two well-defined belts, an outer one without any vegetation, an inner one overgrown with Ammadenia peploides, Elymus mollis, and two kinds of umbellates, Heracleum sibiricum and Angelica archangelica, of which the two last named form an almost impenetrable brush, about 50 meters wide, man high, along the shelf. The abrupt mountain walls are in some places yellow-colored from the Caloplacmus murorum and C. cremulata, in other places quite closely clothed with Cochlearia fenestrata. ; * During a long continued heavy rain many of the animals are said to seek shelter in the sea, but return as soon as the rain ceases. tAccording to Mr. Greboritsky, tertiary petrifactions and seams of coal are found on Bering, the former north of the colony in the interior of the island, the latter at the water’s edge south of Bering’s grave. Also, near the colony, the underlayer below trachyte beds is composed of immense sand layers. — a eee ee a extn come THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 113 The uppermost even plateau is covered by a luxuriant close grass-carpet, over which a few stalks of the two above-named umbellates raise themselves here and there. Vegetation on this little islet combines an unusual poverty of various species with a high degree of luxuriance. Of higher order of animals we saw only four species of birds, namely, Fratercula cirrhata, Uria grylle, one species of Phalacrocoraz (Swedish skafvar), and one kind of the gull (Zarus) species, which live here by the millions. They occupied the upper plateau, where they had everywhere dug out short, deep, and unusually broad passages, with two openings, in which they slept. From there they flew, on our arrival, in large flocks to and from the sea. Their numbers were almost comparable with the auks on the Arctic bird cliffs. The other ducks nestled along the shore cliffs. : The number of the non-vertebrate land-animals foots up perhaps to thirty species. The most numerous are Machelis, Vitrina, Lithobias, Talitrus, a few two-winged beetles (bugs). They all lived on the inner belt of the shore, where the ground is unusually damp. MvcH MILDER CLIMATE THAN THAT OF THE PRIBYLOV GROUP.—Bering island could, without difficulty, feed large herds of cattle, perhaps as numerous as the herds of sea-cows which formerly grazed along its shores. The sea-cow had, as it were, chosen its grazing place with discrimination, because the sea about here, according to Dr. Kjelman, is one of the richest kelp-places in the world. The bottom of the sea is covered, in favorable places, with kelp forests, from 60 to 100 feet high, which are so dense that the scraper with difficulty penetrates down in them, a circumstance which made the dredging exceedingly difficult. Certain kind of kelp is used by the inhabitants for food. SALMON ON THE ISLAND.—That spit, where the sea-bears have their rookeries, is about 20 kilometers distant from the village. We went there each on his sleigh drawn by about ten dogs. During this trip, at a resting-place half-way between the village and the rookeries, we had occasion to take part in a very peculiar fishing. Our halting- place was on an even grass meadow, cut through by innumerable brooks. Those were full of various kinds of fishes, among them a kind of siik (gwiniad, Swedish), a small trout (forell), a medium-sized salmon, with almost white meat, but with purple-red skin, and another of about the same length, but very broad and with a hump on the back. These were easily taken. They were taken by hand, harpooned with an ordinary blunt stick or any piece of wood, eut with knives, or taken with a bug-scoop. Other kinds of salmon, with very highly colored red flesh, are found in the larger streams on the island. We received here, for a mere nothing, a welcome change from the preserved food with which we had long ago become thoroughly disgusted. COURTESY OF THE ALASKA COMMERCIAL ComPpANy.—Beside that, the expedition received, as a gift from the Alaska Company, fat and splendid beeves, milk, and other refreshments, and I cannot sufliciently praise the good-will we experienced, as well from the Russian official, Mr. Greboritsky, an energetic and skillful student of natural history, as from the emnployés of the Alaska Company, and all other persons living on the island with whom we came in contact. [Translation closes.| TABLE SUBMITTED BY THE AUTHOR, SHOWING THE ‘‘CATCH” ON THE COMMANDER ISLANDS.—In order to show the relative importance of the seal business on these Russian islands as compared with that of our own, I append the following exhibit of what has been done there since 1862. Professor Nordenskidld does not seem to have gathered the information; he has, héwever, in his forthcoming Vegds-farden, embodied my figures: Fur-seal skins taken for shipment from the Commander islands. ; 1 Number || Number | Number Years. | of seals Years. of seals |, Years. of seals | taken. || | taken. || taken. Te te REE eS O00) 1B6O! Aes eas ee sc I Boe CG [Srey O00) [P1870 n= 2 2 e222 eho aces nee 26, 960 HBDS one eet 525A s cots an ose a0 qcenme'sans 4) 00" | 187022 = eee coe neato ones lseceaticeetumcne dro O00) WATT cone eus = 327-2 ees. eae 21, 532 EGE A gs OM I ig Sc EA FOOD See eee ee ee eee yal oae RIOT NGIBTS Ye dere ea ee eee eee 31, 340 (AEDS © OS SE AS Oe ae 3 eed ia lege Peta Mea 2k er ABR baie | terpae 2) 2-5 le te ee ee ee | 42,752 HERG eo eset de ewan oes saee sae e es sane ns 4 000)|) A878 22422 S38 oo saaccesneascescccececos: Se 30, 396 | ABSO So Secahsee te sec 22 coos omens a | 48, 504 SRE seeeeee Saar. coe. Saeco Bea Pets 000) ||(1874e= At eceeec oe ree Sse eo | 31,272 | j — SES 8 Se ee ee eer neree ) 1D DBO) || AST 2s eset hoes Ses eck | 36,274 | Total, 1862 to 1880...-..-..---------- | 387, 462 BERING’S DISASTER.—The miserable ending to Bering’s voyage of discovery in 174142 had one redeeming clanse—the shipwreck of the commander’s vessel gave Steller his opportunity of making the fur-seal rookeries ' known to man for the first time, in either history or legend. As the prime factor of this entertaining addition to our knowledge, I think a short recital of the misfortunes of the Russian expedition interesting in the relation which it bears to the subject of my discussion. HOMEWARD VOYAGE AND SHIPWRECK.—In 1741, June 4, Bering and Tschericov set sail from Petropavlovsky, in two small vessels, the “St. Peter” and the “St. Paul”; they proceeded as low as the 50° latitude, then decided to steer eastward for the reported American continent. On the 20th the rude ships were separated by a storm, and the two commanders never met in life again. Sunday, 18th July, Bering, while waiting for the other vessel, drifted on our sorelyest coast. He passed some six weeks in the new waters of his discovery, when by the 3d of September 114 THE FISHERIES QF THE UNITED STATES. a violent storm occurred and lasted seven days, driving them back to 48° 18’ north latitude, and into the lonely wastes of the vast Pacific. The scurvy began to appear on board; hardly a day passed without the death of one of the crew, and men enough in health were scarcely left to manage the ship.