USA > Alaska > Our Arctic province, Alaska and the Seal islands > Part 31
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48
I now call the attention of the reader to another very remark- able feature in the economy of the seal-life on these islands. The great herds of " holluschickie,"* numbering from one-third to one- half, perhaps, of the whole aggregate of near five million seals known to the Pribylov group, are never allowed by the old "see- catchie " (which threaten frightful mutilation or death) to put their flippers on or near the rookeries.
By reference to my map, it will be observed that I have located
* The Russian term " holluschickie" or " bachelors" is very appropriate, and is usually employed.
295
AMPHIBIAN MILLIONS.
a large extent of ground-markedly so on St. Paul-as that occu- pied by the seals' " hauling-ground"; this area, in fact, represents those portions of the island upon which the "holluschickie " roam in heavy squadrons, wearing away and polishing the surface of the soil, stripping every foot, which is indicated on the chart as such, of its vegetation and mosses, leaving a margin as sharply defined on those bluffy uplands and sandy flats as it is on the map itself.
The reason that so much more land is covered by the " hollus- chickie " than by the breeding seals-ten times as much at least- is due to the fact that, though not as numerous, perhaps, as the breeding seals, yet they are tied down to nothing, so to speak-are wholly irresponsible, and roam hither and thither as caprice and the weather may dictate. Thus they wear off and rub down a much larger area than the rookery seals occupy ; wandering aim- lessly, and going back, in some instances, notably at English Bay, from one-half to a whole mile inland, not travelling in desultory files along winding, straggling paths, but sweeping in solid pla- toons, they obliterate every spear of grass and rub down nearly every hummoek in their restless marching.
All the male seals, under six years of age, are compelled to herd apart by themselves and away from the breeding grounds, in many cases far away ; the large hauling-grounds at Southwest Point be- ing about two miles from the nearest rookery. This class of seals is termed "holluschickie" or the "bachelors" by the people : a most fitting and expressive appellation.
The seals of this great subdivision are those with which the na- tives on the Pribylov group are the most familiar : naturally and especially so, since they are the only ones, with the exception of a few thousand pups, and occasionally an old bull or two, taken late in the fall for food and skins, which are driven up to the killing- grounds at the village for slaughter. The reasons for this exclusive attention to the " bachelors " are most cogent, and will be given hereafter when the " business " is discussed.
Since the " holluschickie " are not permitted by their own kind to land on the rookeries and stop there, they have the choice of two methods of locating, one of which allows them to rest in the rear of the rookeries, and the other on the free beaches. The most notable illustration of the former can be witnessed on Reef Point, where a pathway is left for their ingress and egress through a rookery-a
296
OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
path left by common consent, as it were, between the harems. On these trails of passage they come and go in steady files all day and all night during the season, unmolested by the jealous bulls which guard the seraglios on either side as they travel-all peace and comfort to the young seal if he minds his business and keeps straight on up or down, without stopping to nose about right or left ; all woe and destruction to him, however, if he does not, for in that event he will be literally torn in bloody gripping, from limb to limb, by vigilant " see-catchie."
Since the two and three year old " holluschickie " come up in small squads with the first bulls in the spring, or a few days later, such common highways as those between the rookery ground and the sea are travelled over before the arrival of the cows, and get well defined. A passage for the " bachelors," which I took much pleasure in observing day after day at Polavina, another at Tolstoi, and two on the Reef, in 1872, were entirely closed up by the " sea- catchie " and obliterated when I again searched for them in 1874. Similar passages existed, however, on several of the large rookeries of St. Paul. One of those at Tolstoi exhibits this feature very finely, for here the hauling-ground extends around from English Bay, and lies up back of the Tolstoi rookery, over a flat and rolling summit, from one hundred to one hundred and twenty feet above the sea-level. The young males and yearlings of both sexes come through and between the harems at the height of the breeding season on two of these narrow pathways, and before reaching the ground above, are obliged to climb up an almost abrupt bluff, which they do by following and struggling in the water-runs and washes that are worn into its face. As this is a large hauling- ground, on which, every favorable day during the season, fifteen or twenty thousand commonly rest, a view of skilful seal-climbing can be witnessed here at any time during that period ; and the sight of such climbing as this of Tolstoi is exceedingly novel and interesting. Why, verily, they ascend over and upon places where a lively man might, at first thought, say with great positiveness that it was utterly impossible for him to climb !
The other method of coming ashore, however, is the one most followed and favored. In this case they avoid the rookeries alto- gether, and repair to unoccupied beaches between them; and then extend themselves out all the way back from the sea, as far from the water, in some cases, as a quarter and even half of a mile.
--- --
Holluschickie hauling on Lukannon Sands : Myriads come out from the Sea in a single cool foggy night by this manner of progression
ARRIVAL OF THE FUR SEAL MILLIONS
.
-
297
AMPHIBIAN MILLIONS.
I stood on the Tolstoi sand-dunes one afternoon, toward the middle of July, and had under my eyes, in a straightforward sweep from my feet to Zapadnie, a million and a half of seals spread out on those hauling-grounds. Of these I estimated that fully one-half, at that time, were pups, yearlings, and " holluschickie." The rookeries across the bay, though plainly in sight, were so crowded that they looked exactly as I have seen surfaces appear upon which bees had swarmed in obedience to that din and racket made by the watchful apiarian when he desires to secure a hive of restless honey-makers.
The great majority of yearlings and "holluschickie " are an- nually hauled out, scattered thickly over the sand-beach and upland hauling-grounds which lie between the rookeries on St. Paul Island. At St. George there is nothing of this extensive display to be seen, for here is only a tithe of the seal-life occupying St. Paul, and no opportunity whatever is afforded for an amphibious parade.
Descend with me from this sand-dune elevation of Tolstoi, and walk into that drove of " holluschickie " below us. We can do it. You do not notice much confusion or dismay as we go in among them. They simply open out before us and close in behind our tracks, stirring, crowding to the right and left as we go, twelve or twenty feet away from us on each side. Look at this small flock of yearlings-some one, others two, and even three years old-which are coughing and spitting around us now, staring up in our faces in amazement as we walk ahead. They struggle a few rods out of our reach, and then come together again behind us, showing no further sign or notice of ourselves. You could not walk into a drove of hogs at Chicago without exciting as much confusion and arousing an infinitely more disagreeable tumult ; and as for sheep on the plains, they would stampede far quicker. Wild animals, in- deed ! You can now readily understand how easy it is for two or three men, early in the morning, to come where we are, turn aside from this vast herd in front of and around us two or three thousand of the best examples, and drive them back, up, and over to the vil- lage. That is the way they get the seals. There is no " hunting," no " chasing," no " capturing " of fur-seals on these islands.
While the young male seals undoubtedly have the power of going for lengthy intervals without food, they, like the female seals on the breeding grounds, certainly do not maintain any long fasting periods on land. Their coming and going from the shore is fre- quent and irregular, largely influenced by the exact condition of
298
OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
the weather from day to day. For instance, three or four thick, foggy days seem to call them out from the water by hundreds of thousands upon the different hauling-grounds (which the reader observes recorded on my map). In some cases I have seen them lie there so close together that scarcely a foot of ground, over whole acres, is bare enough to be seen. Then a clear and warmer day follows, and this seal-covered ground, before so thickly packed with animal life, will soon be almost deserted-comparatively so, at least-to be filled up immediately as before, when favorable weather shall again recur. They must frequently eat when here, because the first yearlings and " holluschickie " that appear in the spring are no fatter, sleeker, or livelier than they are at the close of the season. In other words, their condition, physically, seems to be the same from the beginning to the end of their appearance here during the summer and fall. It is quite different, however, with the " see-catch." We know how and where it spends two to three months, because we find it on the ground at all times, day or night, during that period.
A small flock of the young seals, one to three years old gener- ally, will often stray from these hauling-ground margins up and beyond over the fresh mosses and grasses, and there sport and play one with another just as little puppy-dogs do: but, when weary of this gambolling, a general disposition to sleep is suddenly mani- fested, and they stretch themselves out and curl up in all the posi- tions and all the postures that their flexible spines and ball-and- socket joints will permit. They seem to revel in the unwonted vegetation, and to be delighted with their own efforts in rolling down and crushing the tall stalks of grasses and umbelliferous plants. One will lie upon its back, hold up its hind flippers, and lazily wave them about, while it scratches, or rather rubs, its ribs with the fore-hands alternately, the eyes being tightly closed dur- ing the whole performance. The sensation is evidently so luxuri- ous that it does not wish to have any side-issue draw off its blissful self-attention. Another, curled up like a cat on a rug, draws its breath, as indicated by the heaving of its flanks, quickly, but regu- larly, as though in heavy sleep. Another will lie flat upon its stomach, its hind flippers covered and concealed, while it tightly folds its forefeet back against its sides, just as a fish carries its pectoral fins, and so on to no end of variety, according to the ground and the fancy of the animals.
299
AMPHIBIAN MILLIONS.
These " bachelor" seals are, I am sure, without exception, the most restless animals, in the whole brute creation, which can boast of a high organization. They frolic and lope about over the grounds for hours without a moment's cessation, and their sleep after this is exceedingly short, and it is ever accompanied by nervous twitch- ings and uneasy muscular movements. They seem to be fairly brimful and overrunning with spontaneity, to be surcharged with fervid, electric life.
Another marked feature observed among the multitudes of " holluschickie " which have come under my personal observation and auditory, and one very characteristic of this class, is that nothing like ill-humor appears in all of their playing together. They never growl or bite or show even the slightest angry feeling, but are invariably as happy, one with another, as can be imagined. This is a very singular trait. They lose it, however, with astonish- ing rapidity when their ambition and strength develops and carries them in due course of time to the rookery.
The pups and yearlings have an especial fondness for sporting on rocks which are just at the water's level and awash, so as to be covered and uncovered as the surf rolls in. On the bare summit of these wave-worn spots they will struggle and clamber, in groups of a dozen or two at a time, throughout the whole day in endeavoring to push off that one of their number which has just been fortunate enough to secure a landing. The successor has, however, but a brief moment of exultation in victory, for the next roller that comes booming in, together with that pressure by its friends, turns the table, and the game is repeated, with another seal on top. Sometimes, as well as I could see, the same squad of "holluschickie " played for an entire day and night, without a moment's cessation, around such a rock as this off "Nah Speel" rookery; still, in this observation I may be mistaken, because those seals could not be told apart.
That graceful unconcern with which fur-seals sport safely in, among, and under booming breakers, during the prevalence of numerous wild gales at the islands, has afforded me many consecu- tive hours of spell-bound attention to them, absorbed in watching their adroit evolutions within the foaming surf, that seemingly every moment would, in its fierce convulsions, dash these hardy swim- mers, stunned and lifeless, against those iron-bound foundations of the shore which alone checked the furious rush of the waves. Not at all. Through the wildest and most ungovernable mood of
300
OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
a roaring tempest and storm-tossed waters attending its transit I never failed, on creeping out and peering over the bluffs in such weather, to see squads of these perfect watermen, the most expert of all amphibians, gambolling in the seething, creamy wake of mighty rollers which constantly broke in thunder-tones over their alert, dodging heads. The swift succeeding waves seemed every instant to poise those seals at the very verge of death; yet the Callorhinus, exulting in his skill and strength, bade defiance to their wrath and continued his diversions.
Hillion 3
Fur-seals rising to breathe and look around. [Characteristic pelagic attitude of the " holluschickie." ]
The "holluschickie " are the champion swimmers of all the seal tribe ; at least, when in the water around the islands, they do nearly every fancy tumble and turn that can be executed. The grave old males and their matronly companions seldom indulge in any extrava- gant display, as do these youngsters, which jump out of the water like so many dolphins, describing beautiful elliptic curves sheer above its surface, rising three and even four feet from the sea, with the back slightly arched, the fore flippers folded tightly against the sides, and the hinder ones extended and pressed together straight out behind, plumping in head first, to reappear in the same man-
301
AMPHIBIAN MILLIONS.
ner, after an interval of a few seconds of submarine swimming, swift as the flight of a bird on its course. Sea-lions and hair-seals never leap in this manner.
All classes will invariably make these dolphin-jumps when they are surprised or are driven into the water, curiously turning their heads while sailing in the air, between the "rises " and "plumps," to take a look at the cause of their disturbance. They all swim rapidly, with the exception of the pups, and may be said to dart under the water with the velocity of a bird on the wing. As they swim they are invariably submerged, running along horizontally about two or three feet below the surface, guiding their course with the hind flippers, as by an oar, and propelling themselves solely by the fore feet, rising to breathe at intervals which are either very frequent or else so wide apart that it is impossible to see the speed- ing animal when he rises a second time .*
How long they can remain under water without taking a fresh breath is a problem which I had not the heart to solve, by insti- tuting a series of experiments at the island ; but I am inclined to think that, if the truth were known in regard to their ability of going without rising to breathe, it would be considered astounding. On this point, however, I have no data worth discussing, but will say that in all their swimming which I have had a chance to study, as they passed under the water, mirrored to my eyes from the bluff above by the whitish-colored rocks below the rookery waters at
* If there is any one faculty better developed than the others in the brain of the intelligent Callorhinus, it must be its "bump" of locality. The unerr- ing directness with which it pilots its annual course back through thousands of miles of watery waste to these spots of its birth-small fly-dots of land in the map of Bering Sea and the North Pacific-is a very remarkable exhibition of its skill in navigation. While the Russians were established at Bodega and Ross, Cal., seventy years ago, they frequently shot fur-seals at sea when hunting the sea-otter off the coast between Fuca Straits and the Farallones. Many of these animals, late in May and early in June, were so far advanced in pregnancy that it was deemed certain by their captors that some shore must be close at hand upon which the near-impending birth of the pup took place. Thereupon the Russians searched over every rod of the coast-line of the main- land and the archipelago between California and the peninsula of Alaska, vainly seeking everywhere there for a fur-seal rookery. They were slow to understand how animals so close to the thiroes of parturition could strike out into the broad ocean to swim fifteen hundred or two thousand miles within a week or ten days ere they landed on the Pribylov group, and, almost immedi- ately after, give birth to their offspring.
302
OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
Great Eastern rookery, I have not been able to satisfy myself how they used their long, flexible hindfeet, other than as steering media. If these posterior members have any perceptible motion, it is so rapid that my eye is not quick enough to catch it ; but the fore flippers, however, can be most distinctly seen as they work in feathering for- ward and sweeping flatly back, opposed to the water, with great ra- pidity and energy. They are evidently the sole propulsive power of the fur-seal in the water, as they are its main fulcrum and lever combined for progression on land. I regret that the shy nature of the hair-seal never allowed me to study its swimming motions, but it seems to be a general point of agreement among authorities on the Phocidce, that all motion in water by them arises from that power which they exert and apply with the hindfeet. So far as my obser- vations on the hair-seal go, I am inclined to agree with this opinion.
All their movements in water, no matter whether travelling to some objective point or merely in sport, are quick and joyous, and nothing is more suggestive of intense satisfaction and pure phys- ical comfort than is that spectacle which we can see every August a short distance at sea from any rookery, where thousands of old males and females are idly rolling over in the billows side by side, rubbing and scratching with their fore and hind flippers, which are here and there stuck up out of the water by their own- ers, like so many lateen-sails of Mediterranean feluccas, or, when their hind flippers are presented, like a "cat-o'-nine tails." They sleep in the water a great deal, too, more than is generally supposed, showing that they do not come ashore to rest-very clearly not.
How fast the fur-seal can swim, when doing its best, I am naturally unable to state. I do know that a squad of young "hol- Inschickie " followed the Reliance, in which I was sailing, down from the latitude of the Seal Islands to Akootan Pass with perfect ease ; playing around the vessel while she was logging, straight ahead, fourteen knots to the hour.
When the "holluschickie " are up on land they can be readily separated into their several classes, as to age, by the color of their coats and size, when noted : thus, as yearlings, two, three, four, and five years old males. When the yearlings, or the first class, haul out, they are dressed just as they were after they shed their pup-coats and took on the second covering, during the previous year in September and October; and now, as they come out in the spring and summer, one year old, the males and females can-
303
AMPHIBIAN MILLIONS.
not be distinguished apart, either by color or size, shape or action ; the yearlings of both sexes have the same steel-gray backs and white stomachs, and are alike in behavior and weight.
Next year those yearling females, which are now trooping out with these youthful males on the hauling-grounds, will repair to the rookeries, but their male companions will be obliged to return alone to this same spot.
About the 15th and 20th of every August they have become perceptibly "stagey," or, in other words, their hair is well under way in shedding. All classes, with the exception of the pups, go through this renewal at this time every year. The process requires about six weeks between the first dropping or falling out of the old over-hair and its full substitution by the new : this change takes place, as a rule, between August 1st and September 28th.
The fur is shed, but it is so shed that the ability of a seal to take to the water and stay there, and not be physically chilled or disturbed during its period of moulting, is never impaired. The whole surface of these extensive breeding-grounds, traversed over by me after the seals had gone, was literally matted with shedded hair and fur. This under-fur or pelage is, however, so fine and delicate, and so much concealed and shaded by the coarser over- hair, that a careless eye or a superficial observer might be pardoned in failing to notice the fact of its dropping and renewal.
The yearling cows retain the colors of the old coat in the new, when they shed for the first time, and so repeat them from that time on, year after year, as they live and grow old. The young three-year-olds and the mature cows look exactly alike, as far as color goes, when they haul up at first and dry out on the rookeries, every June and July.
The yearling males, however, make a radical change when they shed for the first time, since they come out from their " staginess " in a nearly uniform dark gray, and gray and black mixed, and lighter, with dark ochre to whitish on the upper and under parts, respectively. This coat, next year, when they appear as two-year- olds, shedding for the three-year-old coat, is a very much darker gray, and so on to the third, fourth, and fifth seasons ; then after this, with age, they begin to grow more gray and brown, with a rufous-ochre and whitish-tipped "wig" on the shoulders. Some of the yery old bulls change in their declining years to a uniform shade, all over, of dull-grayish ochre. The full glory and beauty of
304
OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
the seal's mustache is denied to him until he has attained his sev- enth or eighth year.
The male does not get his full growth and weight until the close of his seventh year, but realizes most of it, osteologically speaking, by the end of the fifth ; and from this it may be perhaps truly inferred that the male seals live to an average age of eighteen or twenty years, if undisturbed in a normal condition, and that the females exist ten or twelve seasons under the same favorable cir- cumstances. Their respective weights, when fully mature and fat, in the spring, will, in regard to the male, strike an average of from four to five hundred pounds, while the females will show a mean of from seventy to eighty pounds.
The female does not gain a maximum size and weight until the end of her fourth year, so far as I have observed, but she does most of her longitudinal growing in the first two. After she has passed her fourth and fifth years, she weighs from thirty to fifty pounds more than she did in the days of her youthful maternity .* In the
* I did not permit myself to fall into error by estimating this matter of weight, because I early found that the apparent huge bulk of a sea-lion bull or fur-seal male, when placed upon the scales, shrank far below my notions : I took a great deal of pains, on several occasions, during the killing-season, to have a platform scale carted out into the field, and as the seals were knocked down, and before they were bled, I had them carefully weighed, constructing the fol- lowing table from my observations :
Age.
Lengtlı.
Girth.
Gross weight of body.
Weight of skin.
Remarks.
One week
Inches. 12 to 14
Inches. 10 to 10g
Pounds. 6 to 76
11
A male and female, being the only ones of the class han- dled, June 20, 1873.
Six months
24
25
39
3
A mean of ten examples, males and females, alike in size, November 28. 1872.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.