USA > Alaska > Our Arctic province, Alaska and the Seal islands > Part 29
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along down the spine, which blends into an almost snow-white over the chest and on the abdomen. But, this beautiful coloring in turn is again altered by exposure to the same weather ; for, after a few days it will gradually change, so that by the lapse of two or three weeks it is a dull, rufous-ochre below, and a cinereous brown and gray mixed above. This color they retain throughout the breeding season, up to the time of shedding their coats in August.
The head and eye of the female are exceedingly beautiful ; the expression is really attractive, gentle, and intelligent ; the large, lus- trous, blue-black eyes are humid and soft with the tenderest expres- sion, while the small, well-formed head is poised as gracefully on her neck as can be well imagined ; she is the very picture of benig- nity and satisfaction, when she is perched up on some convenient rock, and has an opportunity to quietly fan herself, the eyes half- closed and the head thrown back on her gently-swelling shoulders.
The females land on these islands, not from the slightest desire to see their uncouth lords and masters, but from an accurate and instinctive appreciation of the time in which their period of ges- tation ends. They are in fact driven up to the rookeries by this cause alone ; the young cannot be brought forth in the water, and, in all cases marked by myself, the pups were born soon after landing, some in a few hours, but, most usually, a day or so elapses before delivery. They are noticed and received by the males at the water-line stations with attention ; they are alternately coaxed and urged up on to the rocks, as far as these beach-masters can do so, by chuckling, whistling, and roaring, and then they are imme- diately under the most jealous supervision ; but, owing to the covetous and ambitious nature of those bulls which occupy these stations to the rear of the water-line and away back, the little cows have a rough-and-tumble time of it, when they begin to arrive in small numbers at first ; for no sooner is the pretty animal fairly established on the station of male number one, who has welcomed her there, than he, perhaps, sees another one of her style in the water from whence she has come, and, in obedience to his polyg- amous feeling, devotes himself anew to coaxing the later arrival, by that same winning manner so successful in the first case ; then when bull number two, just back, observes bull number one off guard, he reaches out with his long strong neck and picks up the unhappy but passive cow by the scruff of hers, just as a cat does a kitten, and deposits her upon his seraglio ground ; then bulls
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number three and four, and so on, in the vicinity, seeing this high- handed operation, all assail one another, especially number two, and for a moment have a tremendous fight, perhaps lasting half a minute or so, and during this commotion the little cow is gener- ally moved, or moves, farther back from the water, two or three stations more, where, when all gets quiet again, she usually remains in peace. Her last lord and master, not having that exposure to such diverting temptation as her first, gives her such care that she not only is unable to leave, did she wish, but no other bull can seize upon her : this is only a faint and (I fully appreciate it) wholly in- adequate description of the hurly-burly and that method by which the rookeries are filled up, from first to last, when the females ar- rive-it is only one instance of the many trials and tribulations which both parties on the rookery subject themselves to, before the harems are filled. *
Far back, fifteen or twenty "see-catchie" stations deep from the water-line, and sometimes more, but generally not over an average of ten or fifteen, the cows crowd in at the close of the
* When the females first come ashore there is no sign whatever of affec- tion manifested between the sexes. The males are surly and morose, and the females entirely indifferent to such reception. They are, however, sub- jected to very harsh treatment sometimes in progress of battles between the males for their possession, and a few of them are badly bitten and lacerated every season.
One of the cows that arrived at Nahspeel, St. Paul's Island, early in June, 1872, was treated to a mutilation in this manner, under my eyes. When she had finally landed on the barren rocks of one of the numerous "seecatchie" at the water-front of this small rookery, and while I was carefully making a sketch of her graceful outlines, a rival bull, adjacent, reached out from his station and seized her with his mouth at the nape of the neck, just as a cat lifts a kitten. At the same instant, almost simultaneously, the old male that was rightfully entitled to her charms, turned, and caught her in his teeth by the skin of her posterior dorsal region. There she was, lifted and suspended in mid-air, between the jaws of the furious rivals, until, in obedience to their powerful struggles, the hide of her back gave way, and, as a ragged flap of the raw skin more than six inches broad and a foot in length was torn up and from her spine, she passed, with a rush, into the possession of the bull which had covetously seized her. She uttered no cry during this barbarous treatment, nor did she, when settled again, turn to her torn and bleeding wound to notice it in any way whatsoever that I could observe.
I may add here that I never saw the seals under such, or any circumstances, lick or nurse their wounds as dogs or cats do; but, when severe inflammation takes place, they seek the water, disappearing promptly from scrutiny
The Dea-low Bennys Bug Saloon
AHAREM Et KETAVOETT
The current of the fittest.
Faccioi Sand Dunes
Como Scratching
-Sandis.
VARIOUS SOTTOTUDES The Females. Il
POSTURES of the Pops Sleep and Sport. !
SUNDRY SEAL SKETCHES FROM THE AUTHOR'S PORTFOLIO
On St. Paul's Island, 1872-'76
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season for arriving, which is by July 10th or 14th ; then they are able to go about very much as they please, for the bulls have become so greatly enfeebled by this constant fasting, fighting,. and excitement during the past two months, that they are quite content now with only one or two partners, even if they should have no more.
The cows seem to haul up in compact bodies from the water, covering in the whole ground to the rear of the rookeries, never scattering about over the surface of this area ; they have mapped out, from the first, their chosen resting-places, and they will not lie quietly in any position outside of the great mass of their kind. This is due to their intensely gregarious nature, and is espe- cially adapted for their protection. And here I should call attention to the fact that they select this rookery ground with all the skill of civil engineers. It is preferred with special reference to drain- age, for it must slope so that the produce of constantly dissolving fogs and rain-clouds shall not lie upon it, since they have a great aversion to, and a firm determination not to rest on water-puddled ground. This is admirably exhibited, and will be understood by a study of my sketch-maps which follow, illustrative of these rook- eries and the area and position of the seals upon them. Every one of those breeding grounds rises up gently from the sea, and on no one of them is there anything like a muddy flat.
I found it an exceedingly difficult matter to satisfy myself as to a fair general average number of cows to each bull on the rookery, but, after protracted study, I think it will be nearly correct when I assign to each male a specific ratio of from fifteen to twenty females at the stations nearest the water, and for those back, in order, from that line to the rear, from five to twelve ; but there are many exceptional cases, and many instances where forty-five and fifty females are all under the charge of one male : and then, again, where there are only two or three females : hence this question was and is not entirely satisfactory in its settlement to my mind.
Near Ketavie Point, and just above it to the north, is an odd washı-out of basalt by the surf, which has chiselled, as it were, from the foundation of the island, a lava table, with a single road- way or land passage to it. Upon the summit of this footstool I counted forty-five cows, all under the charge of one old veteran. He had them penned on this table-rock by taking his stand at the gate, as it were, through which they passed up and passed down-a Turkish brute typified.
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At the rear of all these rookeries there is invariably a large number of able-bodied males which have come late, and wait patiently, yet in vain, for families ; most of them having had to fight as desperately for the privilege of being there as any of their more fortunately located neighbors, who are nearer the water, and in succession from there to where they are themselves ; but the cows do not like to be in any outside position. They cannot be coaxed out where they are not in close company with their female mates and masses. They lie most quietly and contentedly in the largest harems, and cover the surface of the ground so thickly that there is hardly moving or turning room when they cease to come from the sea. The inaction on the part of those males in the rear during the breeding season only serves to well qualify them for moving into the places which are necessarily vacated by disabled males that are, in the meantime, obliged to leave from virile exhaus- tion, or incipient wounds. All the surplus able-bodied bulls, which have not been successful in effecting a landing on the rookeries can- not be seen at any one time, however, in the season, on this rear line. Only a portion of their number are in sight ; the others are either loafing at sea, adjacent, or are hauled out in morose squads between the rookeries on the beaches. The cows, during the whole season, do great credit to their amiable expression by their manner and behavior on the rookery. They never fight or quarrel one with another, and never or seldom utter a cry of pain or rage when they are roughly handled by the bulls, which frequently get a cow be- tween them and actually tear the skin from her back with their teeth, cutting deep gashes in it as they snatch her from mouth to mouth. If sand does not get into these wounds it is surprising how rapidly they heal ; and, from the fact that I never could see scars on them anywhere except the fresh ones of this year, they must heal effectually and exhibit no trace the next season.
The cows, like the bulls, vary much in weight, but the ex- traordinary disparity in the adult size of the sexes is exceedingly striking. Two females taken from the rookery nearest to St. Paul village, right under the bluffs (and almost beneath the eaves of the natives' houses) called " Nah Speel," after they had brought forth their young, were weighed by myself, and their respective returns on the scales were fifty-six and one hundred pounds each ; the former being about three or four years old, and the latter over six- perhaps ten. Both were fat, or rather, in good condition-as good
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as they ever are. Thus the female is just about one-sixth the size of the male. Among the sea-lions the proportion is just one-half the bulk of the male, while the hair-seals, as I have before stated, are not distinguishable in this respect, as far as I could observe, but my notice was limited to a few specimens only.
The courage with which the fur-seal holds his position as the head and guardian of a family is of the highest order. I have re- peatedly tried to drive them from their harem-posts, when they were fairly established on their stations, and have, with very few exceptions, failed. I might use every stone at my command, making all the noise I could. Finally, to put this courage to its fullest test, I have walked up to within twenty feet of an old veteran, toward the extreme end of Tolstoi, who had only four cows in charge, and commenced with my double-barrelled fowling-piece to pepper him all over with fine mustard-seed shot, being kind enough, in spite of my zeal, not to put out his eyes. His bearing, in spite of the noise, smell of powder, and painful irritation which the fine shot must have produced, did not change in the least from the usual attitude of determined, plucky defence (which nearly all of the bulls assume) when he was attacked with showers of stones and noise. He would dart out right and left with his long neck and catch the timid cows that furtively attempted to run after each re- port of my gun, fling and drag them back to their places under his head ; and then, stretching up to his full height, look me directly and defiantly in the face, roaring and chuckling most vehemently. The cows, however, soon got away from him : they could not endure my racket, in spite of their dread of him. But he still stood his ground, making little charges on me of ten or fifteen feet in a succession of gallops or lunges, spitting furiously, and then comically retreating, with an indescribable leer and swagger, to the old position, back of which he would not go, fully resolved to hold his own or die in the attempt.
This courage is all the more noteworthy from the fact that, in regard to man, it is invariably of a defensive character. The seal is always on the defensive ; he never retreats, and he will not assail. If he makes you return when you attack him he never follows you much farther than the boundary of his station, and then no aggra- vation will compel him to take the offensive, so far as I have been able to observe. I was very much impressed by this trait.
It is quite beyond my power-indeed, entirely out of the ques-
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tion-to give a fair idea of the thousand and one positions in which seals compose themselves and rest when on land. They may be said to assume every possible attitude which a flexible body can be put into, no matter how characteristic or seemingly forced or con- strained. Their joints seem to be double-hinged-in fact, fitted with ball and socket union of the bones. One favorite position, especially with the females, is to perch upon a point or edge-top of some rock, and throw their heads back upon their shoulders, with the nose held directly up and aloft ; and then, closing their eyes, take short naps without changing their attitude, now and then softly lifting one or the other of their long, slender hind flippers, which they slowly wave with that peculiar fanning motion to which I have alluded heretofore. Another attitude, and one of the most com- mon, is to curl themselves up just as a dog does on a hearth-rug, bringing the tail and nose close together. They also stretch out, laying the head close to the body, and sleep an hour or two without rising, holding one of the hind flippers up all the time, now and then gently moving it, the eyes being tightly closed.
I ought, perhaps, to define the anomalous tail of the fur-seal here. It is just about as important as the caudal appendage to a bear ; even less significant. It is the very emphasis of abbreviation. In the old males it is positively only four or five inches in length, while among the females only two and a half to three inches, wholly inconspicuous, and not even recognized by the casual observer : they never wag or move it at all.
I come now to speak of another feature which interested me nearly, if not quite, as much as any other characteristic of this creature, and that is their fashion of slumber. The sleep of the fur-seal, seen on land, from the old male down to the youngest, is always accompanied by an involuntary, nervous, muscular twitching and slight shifting of the flippers, together with ever and anon quivering and uneasy rollings of the body, accompanied by a quick folding anew of the fore flippers ; all of which may be signs, as it were, in fact, of their simply having nightmares, or of sporting, in a visionary way, far off in some dreamland sea. But, it may be that as an old nurse said in reference to the smiles on a sleeping child's face, they are disturbed by their intestinal parasites. I have studied hundreds of such somnolent examples. Stealing softly up so closely that I could lay my hand upon them from the point where I was sitting, did I wish to, and watching the sleeping seals,
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AMPHIBIAN MILLIONS.
I have always found their sleep to be of this nervous description. The respiration is short and rapid, but with no breathing (unless the ear is brought very close). The quivering, heaving of the flanks only indicates the action of the lungs. I have frequently thought that I had succeeded in finding a snoring seal, especially among the pups ; but a close examination always gave some abnor- mal reason for it-generally a slight distemper ; never anything more severe, however, than some trifle by which the nostrils were stopped to a greater or less degree.
The cows on the rookeries sleep a great deal, but the bulls have the veriest cat-naps that can be imagined. I never could time the slumber of any old male on the breeding grounds which lasted, without interruption, longer than five minutes, day or night. While away from these places, however, I have known them to lie sleeping in the manner I have described, broken by such fitful, nervous, dreamy starts, yet without opening the eyes, for an hour or so at a time.
With an exception of the pups, the fur-seal seems to have very little rest, awake or sleeping. Perpetual motion is well-nigh in- carnate with its being. I naturally enough, when beginning my investigation of these seal-rookeries, expected to find the animals subdued at night, or early morning, on those breeding grounds ; but a few consecutive nocturnal watches satisfied me that the family or- ganization and noise was as active at one time as at another, throughout the whole twenty-four hours. If, however, the day preceding had chanced to be abnormally warm, I never failed then to find the rookeries much more noisy and active during the night than they were by daylight. The seals, as a rule, come and go to and from the sea, fight, roar, and vocalize as mnich during mid- night moments as they do at noonday times. An aged native en- deavored to satisfy me that the " seecatchie " could see much better by twilight and night than by daylight. I am not prepared to prove to the contrary, but I think that the fact of his not being able to see so well himself at that hour of darkness was a true cause of most of his belief in the improved nocturnal vision of the seals .*
This old Alent, Philip Vollkov, passed to his final rest-" un konchiel- sah"-in the winter of 1878-79. He was one of the real characters of St. Paul. He was esteemed by the whites on account of his relative intelli- gence, and beloved by the natives, who called him their " wise man," and who exulted in his piety. Philip, like the other people there of his kind,
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As I have said before, the females, soon after landing, are de- livered of their young. Immediately after the birth of the pup (twins are rare, if ever) the little creature finds its voice-a weak, husky blaat-and begins to paddle about with its eyes wide open from the start, in a confused sort of way for a few minutes, until the mother turns round to notice her offspring and give it atten- tion, and still later, to suckle it ; and for this purpose she is sup- plied with four small, brown nipples, almost wholly concealed in the fur, and which are placed about eight inches apart, lengthwise with the body, on the abdomen, between the fore and hind flippers, with about four inches of space between them transversely. These nipples are seldom visible, and then faintly seen through the hair and fur. The milk is abundant, rich, and creamy. The pups nurse very heartily, almost gorging themselves ; so much so, that they often have to yield up the excess of what they have taken down, mewling and puking in a most orthodox manner.
The pup at birth, and for the next three months, is of a jet- black color, hair and flippers, save a tiny white patch just back of each forearm. It weighs from three to four pounds, and is twelve to fourteen inches long. It does not seem to nurse more than once every two or three days ; but in this I am very likely mistaken, for it may have received attention from its mother in the night, or other times in the day when I was unable to keep up my watch over the individual which I had marked for this supervision.
The apathy with which the young are treated by the old on the breeding grounds, especially by the mothers, was very strange to me, and I was considerably surprised at it. I have never seen a seal- mother caress or fondle her offspring ; and should it stray to a short distance from the harem, I could step to and pick it up, and even kill it before the mother's eye, without causing her the slightest concern, as far as all outward signs and manifestations should indi- cate. The same indifference is also exhibited by the male to all that may take place of this character outside of the boundary of his seraglio ; but the moment the pups are inside the limits of his harem-ground he is a jealous and a fearless protector, vigilant and determined. But if the little animals are careless enough to pass
was not much comfort to me when I asked questions as to the seals. He usually answered important inquiries by crossing himself and replying, "God knows." There was no appeal from this.
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beyond this boundary, then I can go up to them and carry them off before the eye of the old Turk without receiving from him the slightest attention in their behalf-a curious guardian, forsooth !
It is surprising to me how few of these young pups get crushed to death while the ponderous bulls are floundering over them, en- gaged in fighting and quarrelling among themselves. I have seen two bulls dash at each other with all the energy of furious rage, meeting right in the midst of a small " pod" of forty or fifty pups, tramp over them with all their crushing weight, and bowling them out right and left in every direction by the impetus of their move- ments, without injuring a single one, as far as I could see. Still. when we come to consider the fact that, despite the great weight of the old males, their broad, flat flippers and yielding bodies may press down heavily on these little fellows without actually breaking bones or mashing them out of shape, it does seem questionable whether more than one per cent. of all the pups born each season on these great rookeries of the Pribylov Islands are destroyed in this manner on the breeding grounds .*
The vitality of a fur-seal is simply astonishing. Its physical organization passes beyond the fabled nine lives of the eat. As a slight illustration of its tenure of life, I will mention the fact that one morning Philip came to me with a pup in his arms, which had just been born and was still womb-moist, saying that the mother had been killed at Tolstoi by accident, and he supposed that I would like to have a " choochil." I took it up into my labo- ratory, and, finding that it could walk about and make a great noise, I attempted to feed it, with the idea of having a comfortable sub- ject to my pencil for life-study of the young in varied attitudes of sleep and motion. It refused everything that I could summon to its attention as food, and, alternately sleeping and walking in its clumsy fashion about the floor ; it actually lived nine days, spending the half of every one in floundering over the floor, accompanying all movements with a persistent, hoarse, blaating cry, and I do not believe it ever had a single drop of its mother's milk.
In a pup the head is the only disproportionate feature at birth
The only danger which these little fellows are subject to up here is being caught by an October gale down at the surf-margin, when they have not fairly learned to swim. Large numbers have been destroyed by sudden " nips" of this character.
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when it is compared with an adult form, the neck being also rela- tively shorter and thicker. The eye is large, round, and full ; but, almost a " navy blue " at times, it soon changes into the blue-black of adolescence.
The females appear to go to and come from the water feeding and bathing quite frequnetly after bearing their young and an im- mediate subsequent coitus with the male : they usually return to the spot or its immediate neighborhood, where they leave their pups, crying out for them and recognizing the individual replies ; though ten thousand around, all together, should blaat at once, they quickly single out their own and nurse them. It would certainly be a very unfortunate matter if the mothers could not identify their young by sound, since these pups get together like a great swarm of bees, and spread out upon the ground in what the sealers call " pods," or clustered groups, while they are young and not very large ; thus, from the middle or end of September until they leave the islands for the dangers of the great Pacific in the winter, along by the first of November, they gather in this manner, sleeping and frolicking by tens of thousands, bunched together at various places all over the islands contiguous to the breeding grounds, and right on them. A mother comes up from the sea, whither she has been to wash, and perhaps to feed, for the last day or two, feeling her way along to about where she thinks her pup should be-at least, where she left it last ; but perhaps she misses it, and finds instead a swarm of pups in which it has been incorporated, owing to its great fondness for society. The mother, without first entering into a crowd of thousands, calls just as a sheep does for a lamb, and out of all the din she-if not at first, at the end of a few trials -- recognizes the voice of her offspring, and then advances, striking out right and left toward the position from which it replies ; but if the pup happens at this time to be asleep, it gives, of course, no response, even though it were close by. In the event of such silence the cow, after calling for a time without being answered, curls her- self up and takes a nap or lazily basks, to be usually more success- ful, or wholly so, when she calls again.
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