USA > Alaska > Our Arctic province, Alaska and the Seal islands > Part 28
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It appears from my survey of these breeding grounds that a well-understood principle exists among the able-bodied males, to- wit : that each one shall remain undisturbed on his own ground, which is usually about six to eight feet square : provided, that at the start, and from that time until the arrival of the females, he is strong enough to hold this ground against all comers ; inasmuch as the crowding in of fresh arrivals often causes a removal of those which, though equally able-bodied at first, have exhausted them- selves by fighting earlier and constantly, they are finally driven by these fresher animals back farther and higher up on the rookery, and sometimes off altogether.
The labor of locating and maintaining a position on the rookery is real, terrible and serious business for these bulls which come in last, and it is so all the time to those males that occupy the water- line of the breeding grounds. A constantly sustained fight between the new-comers and the occupants goes on morning, noon, and night, without cessation, frequently resulting in death to one, or even both, of the combatants. The " seecatchie " under six years of age, al- though hovering about the sea-margins of the breeding grounds, do not engage in much fighting there ; it is the six and seven year old males, ambitious and flushed with a full sense of their re- productive ability, that swarm out and do battle with the older males of these places. A young male of this latter class is, how- ever, no match for any fifteen or twenty year old bull, provided that an old " seecatchie " retains his teeth ; for, with these weapons, his relatively harder thews and sinews give him the advantage in almost every instance among the hundreds of combats that I have witnessed. These trials of strength between the old and the young are incessant until the rookeries are mapped out ; since, by common consent, the males of all classes recognize the coming of the females. After their arrival and settlement over the whole extent of the breeding grounds, about July 15th at the latest, very little fighting takes place.
Many of those bulls exhibit wonderful strength and desperate courage. I marked one veteran at Gorbatch, who was the first to take up his position early in May, and that position, as usual, directly on the water-line. This male seal had fought at least forty or fifty desperate battles, and beaten off his assailants every time- perhaps nearly as many different seals each of which had coveted his position-when the fighting season was over (after the cows are
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mostly all hauled up), I saw him still there, covered with scars and frightfully gashed-raw, festering, and bloody, one eye gouged out -but lording it bravely over his harem of fifteen or twenty females, which were all huddled together around him on the same spot of his first location.
This fighting between the old and adult males (for none others fight) is mostly, or rather entirely, done with the mouth. The op- ponents seize one another with their teeth, and thus clinching their jaws, nothing but the sheer strength of the one and the other tug- ging to escape can shake them loose ; then, that effort invariably leaves an ugly wound, for the sharp canines tear out deep gutters in the skin and furrows in the blubber, or shred the flippers into ribbon-strips.
They usually approach each other with comically averted heads, just as though they were ashamed of the rumpus which they are de- termined to precipitate. When they get near enough to reach one another, they enter upon the repetition of many feints or passes be- fore either one or the other takes the initiative by gripping. The heads are darted out and back as quick as a flash ; their hoarse roaring and shrill, piping whistle never ceases, while their fat bodies writhe and swell with exertion and rage; furious lights gleam in their eyes, their hair flies in the air, and their blood streams down,-all combined makes a picture so fierce and so strange that, from its unexpected position and its novelty, it is perhaps one of the most extraordinary brutal contests which a man can witness.
In these battles of the seals the parties are always distinct ; the one is offensive, the other, defensive. If the latter proves the weaker, he withdraws from the position occupied, and is never fol- lowed by his conqueror, who complacently throws up one of his hind flippers, fans himself, as it were, to cool his fevered wrath and blood from the heat of the conflict, sinks into comparative quiet, only uttering a peculiar chuckle of satisfaction or contempt, with a sharp eye open for another covetous bull or " see-catch." *
That period occupied by the males in taking and holding their positions on a rookery offers a very favorable opportunity to study them in the thousand and one different attitudes and postures
* See-catch," is the native name for a bull on the rookeries, especially one which is able to maintain its position.
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OLD BULLS FIGHTING
Fur Seals in Deadly Combat : a Thousand such Conflicts are in simultaneous Action during every Minute of the Breeding Season on the Pribylov Islands
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assumed between the two extremes of desperate conflict and deep sleep-sleep so profound that one can, if he keeps to the leeward, approach close enough, stepping softly, to pull the whiskers of any old male taking a nap on a clear place. But after the first touch to these mustaches the trifler must jump back with electrical celerity, if he has any regard for the sharp teeth and tremendous shaking which will surely overtake him if he does not. The younger seals sleep far more soundly than the old ones, and it is a favorite pas- time for the natives to surprise them in this manner-favorite, be- cause it is attended with no personal risk. The little beasts, those amphibious sleepers, rise suddenly, and fairly shrink to the earth, spitting and coughing out in their terror and confusion.
The neck, chest, and shoulders of a fur-seal bull comprise more than two-thirds of his whole weight ; and in this long, thick neck and the powerful muscles of the fore-limbs and shoulders is em- bodied the larger portion of his strength. When on land, with the fore-hands he does all climbing over rocks and grassy hummocks back of the rookery, or shuffles his halting way over smoothi parades-the hind-feet are gathered up as useless trappings after every second step forward, which we have described at the outset of this chapter. These anterior flippers are also the propelling power when in water, and exclusive machinery with which they drive their rapid passage-the hinder ones float behind like the steering sweep to a whale-boat, and are used evidently as rudders, or as the tail of a bird is, while its wings sustain and force its rapid flight.
The covering to its body is composed of two coats, one being a short, crisp, glistening over-hair, and the other a close, soft, elastic pelage or fur, which gives a distinctive value to the pelt. I can call it readily to the mind of my readers when I say to them that the down and feathers on the breast of a duck lie relatively as the fur and hair do upon the skin of the seal.
At this season of first " hauling up "* in the spring the prevail- ing color of the bulls, after they dry off and have been exposed to the weather, is a dark, dull brown, with a sprinkling in it of lighter brown-black, and a number of hoary or grizzled gray coats peculiar
* " Hauling up," is a technical term applied to the action of seals when they land from the surf and haul up or drag themselves over the beach. It is expressive and appropriate, as are most of the sealing phrases.
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to the very old males. On the shoulders of all of them-that is, the adults-the over-hair is either a gray or rufous-ochre or a very emphatic "pepper and salt." This is called the "wig." The body-colors * are most intense and pronounced upon the back of the head, neck, and spine, fading down on the flanks lighter, to much lighter ground on the abdomen ; still never white or even a clean gray, so beautiful and peculiar to them when young, and to the females. The skin of the muzzle and flippers is a dark bluish- black, fading in the older examples to a reddish and purplish tint. The color of the ears and tail is similar to that of the body, perhaps a trifle lighter. The ears on a bull fur-seal are from one inch to an inch and a half in length. The pavilions or auricles are tightly rolled up on themselves, so that they are similar in shape to and exactly the size of the little finger on the human hand, cut off at the second phalangeal joint-a trifle more cone-shaped, however-as they are greater at the base than they are at the tip. They are haired and furred as the body is.
I think it probable that this animal is able to and does exert the power of compressing or dilating this scroll-like pavilion to its ear, just according as it dives deeper or rises in the water, and also I am quite sure that the hair-seal has this control over its meatus e.r- ternus, from what I have seen of it. I have not been able to verify it in either case by actual observation ; yet such opportunity as I have had gives me undoubted proof of the fact that the hearing of a fur-seal is wonderfully keen and surpassingly acute. If you make any noise, no matter how slight, an alarm will be given in- stantly by these insignificant-looking auditors, and the animal, awaking from profound sleep, assumes, with a single motion, an erect posture, gives a stare of stupid astonishment, at the same time breaking out into incessant, surly roaring, growling, and " spit- ting," if it be an old male.
This spitting, as I call it, is by no means a fair or full expression of a most characteristic sound or action, so far as I have ob-
* There is also perfect uniformity in the coloration of the breeding coats of fur-seals, which is strikingly manifest while inspecting the rookeries late in July, when they are solidly massed thereon. At a quarter-mile dis- tance the whole immense aggregate of animal life seems to be fused into a huge homogeneous body that is alternately roused up in sections and then composed, just as a quantity of iron-filings covering the bottom of a saucer will rise and fall when a magnet is passed over and around the dish.
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served, peculiar to fur-seals alone, the bulls in particular. It is the usual prelude to all their combats, and it is their signal of as- tonishment. It follows somewhat in this way: when the two dis- putants are nearly within reaching or striking distance, they make a number of feints or false passes, as fencing-masters do, at one an- other, with the mouth wide open, lifting the lips or snarling so as to exhibit their glistening teeth ; with each pass of the head and neck they expel the air so violently through the larynx as to cause a rapid choo-choo-choo sound, like steam-puffs as they escape from the smoke-stack of a locomotive when it starts a heavy train, espe- cially while the driving-wheels slip on the rail.
All of the bulls have the power and frequent inclination to utter four distinct calls or notes. This is not the case with the sea-lion, whose voice is confined to a single bass roar, or that of the walrus, which is limited to a dull grunt, or that of the hair-seal, which is al- most inaudible. This volubility of the adult male is decidedly charac- teristic and prominent. He utters a hoarse, resonant roar, loud and long ; he gives vent to a low, entirely different gurgling growl ; he emits a chuckling, sibilant, piping whistle, of which it is impossi- ble to convey an adequate idea, for it must be heard to be under- stood, and this spitting or choo sound just mentioned. The cow * has but one note-a hollow, prolonged, bla-a-ting call, addressed only to her pup : on all other occasions she is usually silent ; it is something strangely like the cry of a calf or an old sheep. She also makes a spitting sound or snort when suddenly disturbed -a kind of cough, as it were. The pups " blaat " also, with little or no variation, their sound being somewhat weaker and hoarser
* Without explanation I may be considered as making use of paradoxical language by using these terms of description, since the inconsistency of talking of "pups," with "cows," and " bulls," and "rookeries," on the breeding grounds of the same, cannot fail to be noticed ; but this nomenclature has been given and used by the American and English whaling and sealing parties for many years, and the characteristic features of the seals themselves so suit the naming that I have felt satisfied to retain the style throughout as render- ing my description more intelligible, especially so to those who are engaged in the business or may be hereafter. The Russians are more consistent, but not so "pat." They call the bull " see-catch," a term implying strength, vigor, etc. ; the cow, "matkah," or mother; the pups, "kotickie," or little seals ; the non-breeding males under six and seven years, " holluschickie," or bache- lors. The name applied collectively to the fur-seal by them is " morskie-kot," or sea-cat.
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after birth than their mother's. They, too, comically spit or cough when aroused suddenly from a nap or driven into a corner, open- ing their little mouths (like young birds in a nest) when at bay, backed up in some crevice or against grassy tussocks.
Indeed, so similar is that call of the female to the bleating of sheep that a number of the latter, which the Alaska Commercial Company had brought up from San Francisco to St. George Island during the summer of 1873, were constantly attracted to the rook- eries, and were running in among the "holluschickie " so much that they neglected better pasturage on the uplands beyond, and a small boy had to be regularly employed to herd them where they would feed to advantage. These transported Ovida, though they could not possibly find anything in their eyes suggestive of companionship among the seals, had their ears so charmed by those sheep-like ac- cents of the female pinnipeds as to persuade them in spite of their senses of vision and smell.
The sound which arises from these great breeding grounds of the fur-seal, where thousands upon tens of thousands of angry, vigi- lant bulls are roaring, chuckling, and piping, and multitudes of seal-mothers are calling in hollow, bleating tones to their young, that in turn respond incessantly, is simple defiance to verbal de- scription. It is, at a slight distance, softened into a deep boom- ing, as of a cataract ; and I have heard it, with a light, fair wind to the leeward, as far as six miles out from land on the sea ; even in the thunder of the surf and the roar of heavy gales, it will rise up and over to your ear for quite a considerable distance away. It is a monitor which the sea-captains anxiously strain their ears for, when they run their dead reckoning up, and are lying to for the fog to rise, in order that they may get their bearings of the land. Once heard, they hold on to the sound, and feel their way in to anchor. The seal-roar at " Novastoshnalı " during the summer of 1872 saved the life of a surgeon," and six natives belonging to the village, who had pushed out on an egging trip from Northeast Point to Walrus Island. I have sometimes thought, as I have lis-
* Dr. Otto Cramer: The suddenness with which fog and wind shut down and sweep over the sea here, even when the day opens most auspiciously for a short boat-voyage, has so alarmed the natives in times past that a visit is now never made by them from island to island, unless on one of the company's vessels. Several bidarrahs have never been heard from, which, in earlier times, at- tempted to sail, with picked crews of the natives, from one island to the other.
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tened all night long to this volume of extraordinary sound, which never ceases with the rising or the setting of the sun throughout the entire period of breeding, that it was fully equal to the churn- ing boom of the waves of Niagara. Night and day, belonging to that season, vibrates with this steady and constant din upon the rookeries.
MENTION
Fur-seals Scratching Themselves, [off the Black Bluffs, St. Paul's Island.]
The most casual observer will notice that these seals seem to suf- fer great inconvenience and positive misery from a comparatively low degree of heat. I have often been surprised to observe that, when the temperature was 46° and 48° Fahr. on land during the summer, they would show everywhere signs of distress, whenever they made any exertion in moving or fighting, evidenced by panting and the ele- vation of their hind flippers, which they used incessantly as so many fans. With the thermometer again higher, as it is at rare intervals,
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standing at 55" and 60°, they are then oppressed even when at rest ; and at such times the eye is struck by the kaleidoscopic appearance of a rookery-in any of these rookeries where the seals are spread out in every imaginable position their lithesome bodies can assume, all industriously fan themselves : they use sometimes the fore flip- pers as ventilators, as it were, by holding them aloft motionless, at the same time fanning briskly with the hinder ones, according as they sit or lie. This wavy motion of fanning or flapping gives a hazy indistinctness to the whole scene, which is difficult to express in language ; but one of the most prominent characteristics of the fur-seal, and perhaps the most unique feature, is this very fanning manner in which they use their flippers, when seen on the breeding grounds at this season. They also, when idle, as it were, off-shore at sea, lie on their sides in the water with only a partial exposure of the body, the head submerged, and then hoist up a fore or hind flipper clear out of the water, at the same time scratching them- selves or enjoying a momentary nap ; but in this position there is no fanning. I say " scratching," because the seal, in common with all animals, is preyed upon by vermin, and it has a peculiar species of louse, or parasitic tick, which annoys it.
Speaking of seals as they rest in the water leads me to remark that they seem to sleep as sound and as comfortably, bedded on the waves or rolled by the swell, as they do on the land. They lie on their backs, fold the fore flippers down across the chest, and turn the hind ones up and over, so that the tips rest on their necks and chins, thus exposing simply the nose and the heels of the hind flippers above water, nothing else being seen. In this position, un- less it is very rough, the seal sleeps as serenely as did the prototype of that memorable song, who was "rocked in the cradle of the deep."
All the bulls, from the very first, that have been able to hold their positions, have not left them from the moment of their landing for a single instant, night or day ; nor will they do so until the end of the rutting season, which subsides entirely between August 1st and 10th-it begins shortly after the coming of the cows in June. Of necessity, therefore, this causes them to fast, to abstain entirely from food of any kind, or water, for three months at least ; and a few of them actually stay out four months, in total abstinence, before going back into the ocean for the first time after "hauling up" in May. They then return as so many
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bony shadows of what they were only a few months previously ; covered with wounds, abject and spiritless, they laboriously crawl back to the sea to renew a fresh lease of life.
Such physical endurance is remarkable enough alone ; but it is simply wonderful when we come to associate this fasting with the unceasing activity, restlessness, and duty devolved upon the bulls as the heads of large families. They do not stagnate like hibernat- ing bears in caves ; there is not one torpid breath drawn by them in the whole period of their fast. It is evidently sustained and accom- plished by the self-absorption of their own fat, with which they are so liberally supplied when they first come out from the sea and take up their positions on the breeding grounds, and which gradually disappears, until nothing but the staring hide, protruding tendons and bones mark the limit of their abstinence. There must be some remarkable provision made by nature for the entire torpidity of the seals' stomachs and bowels, in consequence of their being empty and unsupplied during this long period, coupled with the intense activity and physical energy of the animals throughout that time, which, however, in spite of the violation of a supposed physiological law, does not seem to affect them, for they come back just as sleek, fat, and ambitious as ever, in the following season. That the seals drink or need fresh water, I doubt ; but they cool their mouths in- cessantly by swimming with them wide open through the waves, laving as it were their hot throats and lips in the flood .*
Between June 12th and 14th, the first of the cow-seals, as a rule, come up from the sea ; then that long agony of the waiting bulls is over, and they signalize it by a period of universal, spas- modic, desperate fighting among themselves. Though they have quarrelled all the time from the moment they first landed, and con-
" Do these seals drink ?" is a question doubtless often uppermost and suggested to the observer's eye, as he watches those animals going to the water from the hauling-grounds and the rookeries ; at least it was in mine. I never could detect a callorhinus or a eumetopias lapping, either in the fresh-water pools and lakes, or in the brackish lagoon, or the sea ; but it plunges at times into the rollers with its jaws wide open as it dives, reappearing quickly in the same manner to dip and rise again, many times in rapid succession, as it swims along, the water running in little streams from the corners of the open mouth whenever its head pops above the surface. Whether this action was simply to cool itself, or that of drinking, T'am not prepared to assert positively. I think it was to meet both purposes.
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tinue to do so until the end of the season, in August, yet that fight- ing which takes place at this date is the bloodiest and most vindic- tive known to the seal. I presume that the heaviest percentage of mutilation and death among the old males from these brawls, occur in this week of the earliest appearance of the females.
A strong contrast now between the males and females looms up, both in size and shape, which is heightened by an air of exceeding peace and dove-like amiability which the latter class exhibit, in con- tradistinction to the ferocity and saturnine behavior of the former .* The cows are from four to four and a half feet in length from head to tail, and much more shapely in their proportions than the bulls; there is no wrapping around their necks and shoulders of unsightly masses of blubber ; their lithe, elastic forms, from the first to the last of the season, are never altered ; they are, however, enabled to keep such shape, because, in the provision of seal economy, they sustain no protracted fasting period ; for, soon after the birth of their young they leave it on the ground and go to the sea for food, returning perhaps to-morrow, may be later, or even not for several days in fact, to again suckle and nourish it; having in the mean- time sped far off to distant fishing banks, and satiated a hunger which so active and highly organized an animal must experience, when deprived of sustenance for any length of time.
As the females come up wet and dripping from the water, they are at first a dull, dirty-gray color, dark on the back and upper parts, but in a few hours the transformation in their appearance made by drying is wonderful. You would hardly believe that they could be the same animals, for they now fairly glisten with a rich steel and maltese gray lustre on the back of the head, the neck, and
* The old males, when grouped together by themselves, indulge in no humor or frolicsome festivities whatsoever. On the contrary, they treat each other with surly indifference. The mature females, however, do not appear to lose their good nature to anything like so marked a degree as do their lords and masters, for they will at all seasons of their presence on the islands be ob- served now and then, to suddenly unbend from severe matronly gravity by coyly and amiably tickling and gently teasing one another, as they rest in the harems, or later, when strolling in September. There is no sign given, how- ever, by these seal-mothers of a desire or attempt to fondle or caress their pups ; nor do the young appear to sport with any others than the pups them- selves, when together. Sometimes a yearling and a five or six months old pup will have a long-continned game between themselves. They are decidedly clannish in this respect-creatures of caste, like Hindoos.
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