The ladies of England, who, living at home at ease, shield themselves
from the inclemency of our not very rigorous winters in their elegant
sealskin coats, think little, and know less, of the curious animal
from which their beautiful garment is taken, and of the peculiar
circumstances of its habitat and capture. Nor can their ignorance
be deemed much of a reproach, seeing that until recently, even
scientists were accustomed to regard the fur-seal as but a variety of
the hair-seal, not unknown on the shores of Scotland, and abounding
in the North and West Atlantic. But the two are quite dissimilar in
their individuality and character, and as Mr H. W. Elliott, of the
Smithsonian Institute of the United States—to whom we are chiefly
indebted for the substance of this article—says, ‘the truth connected
with the life of the fur-seal, as it herds in countless myriads on the
islands of Aleutian Alaska, is far stranger than fiction.’ Mr Elliott
spent three years in continuous observations on the spot, and is the
first to afford us a complete and trustworthy view of the strange
eventful history.
The fur-seal formerly abounded in the southern hemisphere on the
borders of the Antarctic Circle; but reckless killing has well-nigh
exterminated it there, and now, one may say that the only habitat of
commercial importance is in that portion of the North Pacific which
washes the Aleutian division of Alaska; and even here, the range
is practically confined to four comparatively small islands. These
islands were discovered by the Russian navigator Pribylov in 1786,
and are still called by his name. They lie about two hundred miles
due north of the group usually called the Aleutian Islands, off the
western extremity of the Alaska peninsula. The Pribylov Islands rest
in the very heart of Behring Sea, but far enough south to be free
from permanent ice-floes, and thus to escape the ravages of the polar
bear; while also far enough from the mainland and inhabited islands to
be free from the attacks of the primitive races. Thus the seals had
collected and bred there for countless ages, undisturbed by beast or
man, until the Russians first broke in upon their preserves. They have
been the objects of constant attention and pursuit ever since.
There are three kinds of seals. The _Phoca vitulina_ is the common
hair-seal, which may often be seen on our north-western shores, which
the fishing-vessels of Dundee, of Hull, of Peterhead, and of Greenock,
go out to Greenland and Labrador to catch every season for the sake
of the oil—the skin being of little value—and specimens of which,
alive or stuffed, we may fairly assume every one of our readers has
seen somewhere or other. There is probably not an aquarium of the
country which has not a family of them. Then there is the _Eumetopias
stelleri_, which the Russians call ‘Seevitchie,’ and which is known
to our mariners as the ‘sea-lion.’ This and the walrus, which may be
considered akin, are found in all the circumpolar regions. Lastly,
there is the _Callorhinus ursinus_, called ‘Kantickie’ by the Russians,
which is the true fur-seal, and which is the subject of our sketch.
It has no generic affinity with the others, and is of quite different
habits. As has been said, it is now found only on four islands of
Behring Sea.
Of the fur-seal, it has been said that there is no known animal on
land or water which can take higher physical rank, or which exhibits
a higher order of instinct, closely approaching human intelligence.
The male fur-seal is in his full prime at six or seven years of age,
and will then measure from six and a half to seven and a half feet
from snout to tail. He will weigh between four hundred and six hundred
pounds—the latter weight, however, being found only in older animals,
and not very frequently. He has a small head, with a muzzle and jaws
not unlike both in size and form to those of a pure Newfoundland dog.
The lips, however, are firm, and pressed together like those of man,
and the large eyes of blue-gray are capable of expressing both soft and
fierce emotions. On the upper lip he has a long moustache of grayish
bristles, which are often long enough to extend over his shoulder. He
swims with his head high over the water, and on land walks with an
undulating carriage and head erect. If frightened, he will run as fast
as a man, but not very far—thirty or forty yards sufficing to exhaust
his wind. The hind-feet are longer than the fore-feet or flippers, and
in shape are very like the human foot elongated to twenty inches or so,
and with the instep flattened. There are three toes on the hind-feet;
but the fore-flippers are fingerless hands some eight or ten inches
broad.
The female fur-seal is from four to four and a half feet in length
from snout to tail, lithe in form, without the heavy covering of fat
round the shoulders which the male has, and with beautiful, gentle,
intelligent, dark-blue eyes. She will weigh from fifty to a hundred
pounds, according to her condition. Her manners are as amiable as her
eyes, and she never fights with her neighbours, as her quarrelsome lord
and master does. The cow-seal has but one voice—a sort of bleating
half-way between the cry of a calf and that of an old sheep—and this
is used for calling the young, which, curiously enough, are known as
‘pups,’ although the mothers are ‘cows,’ and the fathers ‘bulls.’ The
male seal, however, has four voices. One is for battle, and resembles
the puffing of a labouring locomotive; another is a hoarse loud roar;
a third is a sort of low gurgle or growl; and a fourth, a sort of
chuckle, half-hiss, half-whistle. The breeding-grounds are called
‘rookeries,’ and there, during the season, the din of roars, puffs,
growls, and whistles from countless thousands of vigorous ‘bulls,’ is
ceaseless, and in volume has been compared to the boom of Niagara.
It is odd that the breeding-place of ‘bulls’ and ‘cows’ should be
called ‘rookeries,’ but so it is. The first to arrive at these
rookeries are the bull-seals, and the season begins about the first of
May. As it is ‘First come, first served,’ and as there is an unwritten
law among them that a bull requires a clear space of from six to eight
feet square for the accommodation of himself and family, there is much
scrambling and fighting for plots, and the late arrivals may be driven
away without being allowed a landing-place at all. They fight with
great strength and courage—only the adult males, however—running at
each other with averted heads, and then seizing each other with their
teeth. The battles are often long, and the wounds severe; but these
soon heal; and an adventurous ‘bull’ thinks nothing of forty or fifty
desperate combats in a season. While fighting, they utter both their
roar and their whistle, the hair is sent flying in all directions, and
the eyes gleam with angry fire. It is said that in a seal-fight there
is always an offensive and a defensive party, and that if the latter
is beaten, he simply vacates his position to the victor, who does not
follow his foe, but lies down on the conquered territory and gives vent
to his chuckle.
Although the cows are amiable, they are not particularly demonstrative
to their infants, which are born immediately after the females are
located in the rookeries. Twins are very rare, and mothers always
suckle their own young. The pups do not know their own mothers, and if
separated from them, will take with the greatest alacrity to the first
kindly cow which will console them with her rich creamy and abundant
milk. The pups, for the first three months after birth, are jet black
in colour, and bleat in a minor key after the fashion of the cows. At
birth, a pup will weigh three or four pounds, and measure twelve or
fourteen inches in length. Curiously enough, the pup-seal cannot swim,
and even if he is several weeks old, will helplessly sink, if thrown
into the water. But about the second week of August begins one of the
most curious episodes of seal-life—the education of the young. By the
time he has counted six weeks or so of life, the pup-seal begins to
feel an inclination to play on the margin of the sea, where, as the
waves flow and recede, the shore is alternately covered and uncovered.
The baby-seal finds that thousands and thousands and tens of thousands
of his fellow-babies have been smitten with the same curiosity about
the sea almost simultaneously with himself, and that the beach is
swarming with tumbling, floundering, gurgling, whistling, playful, yet
nervous young animals. By-and-by, one plucks up courage to try a plunge
in the deeper surf; others follow; one gets carried beyond his depth,
and in frantic struggles to reach the shore again, discovers that he
has a power of locomotion even in the water. It is but feeble; and when
a kindly wave chucks him out of harm’s way on to the rocks, he is blown
and exhausted. But he takes a short sleep, and then has another go; and
after a few more efforts, finds, to his great delight, that he is even
more at home in the water than on the land. For the next few weeks
the coast-waters of the islands are black with the little fat bodies
revelling in their new-found power, and gamboling among the breakers
like children on the grass. It used to be believed by the old sailors
that the parent seals drove their young ones into the water and taught
them forcibly to swim; but more recent and careful observation places
it beyond doubt that the parents take no part whatever in the process
of education, but leave the young ones to learn the battle of life for
themselves.
By the time the breeding season is over, all the young seals have
become able-bodied swimmers. By this time, too, the pups have grown
to thirty or forty pounds-weight, and have changed the black coat of
infancy for the thick, gray, hairy coat of youth. At this age, the
coats of both male and female are similar; indeed, not until the third
year do they assume their permanent differences. The outer coat of the
full-grown bull is of a dark-brown colour, and the hairs are short and
crisp; beneath, like the down under the feathers of a bird, is the
close, soft, elastic fur, so esteemed by man, or rather woman. The
full-grown cows, as they come into the rookeries at the beginning of
the season, are of a dull, dirty-gray colour, which, after they have
been a short time on land, changes to a rich steely gray on the back,
and snow-white on the chest and belly; but after a few weeks the white
changes into a dull ruddy colour, and the steel gray into a brownish
gray. The breeding season is over by the end of July; the families
begin to break up, and the rookeries to be disorganised during August.
By the middle of September, all order and distinction is lost, and the
young ones have commenced life on their own account. By the end of
October, all the mature seals have left the islands; and by the end of
November, even the youngest have disappeared.
Whither? That is one of the conundrums of nature, as is also the
question, where do the seals die? It is certain that none perish from
natural causes on the islands, and all that is known of their doings
elsewhere is, that they seem usually to shape a southern course. They
are lost in the vast mazes of the Pacific, not to be seen of man again
until the following summer. They have natural enemies in sharks and
other submarine animals of prey; but it is not thought that their
numbers suffer much diminution on this account. Their own food is fish,
and Mr Elliott has calculated that an adult male seal will consume
forty pounds, and an adult female ten to twelve pounds, per day, of
fresh fish. Taking, with the young ones, an average of ten pounds per
day each, and the numbers annually frequenting the rookeries of the
Pribylov Islands—which have been ascertained by careful measurement and
estimate at about four millions and three-quarters—we have a total of
six millions of tons of fish consumed every year by the fur-seals! The
figures are stupendous, but they seem beyond doubt.
As to the now approximately known number of seals, there is no reason
to believe that it is any greater than it was when the islands were
first discovered; and while the number will not be decreased by the
present method of capture, it is not thought that it will increase. The
supply of fur-seals, then, may be taken as a fixed quantity, with a
known annual yield to man. That yield is restricted by the law of the
United States to one hundred thousand skins per annum. The government
holds the islands for the State and leases the right of capture to a
Company, who are permitted not to take a larger number than that just
mentioned. They employ the natives of the Aleutian Islands, who work
in gangs, under their chiefs, and receive forty cents, or one shilling
and eightpence, for every ‘pelt’ or hide they hand to the Company’s
officials. Government officers, again, keep a separate tally; so there
is a double check upon the Company, who cannot easily, even if they
wish, exceed their prescribed rights. As the annual birth-rate is
about one million, of which one half are males, the number annually
abstracted by man can have no appreciable effect in reducing the supply
or in affecting the natural increase. The average natural life of the
male seal is believed to be from fifteen to twenty years, and that of
the female, about ten years, so that deaths by man on the rookeries,
and from submarine foes during the winter, suffice to keep the race
within the bounds now known.
The men operate only on the haunts of the ‘bachelor’ seals. It is
presumed that about two-thirds of the males are not allowed to land
on the rookeries by the stronger and abler remanent, so that the
wants of man can be supplied without interfering with the operations
of the breeding-grounds. When the ‘bachelors’ are dozing about the
shores in the early summer, the natives get in quietly between them
and the sea. The seals on perceiving the men turn to run inland, and
are easily driven to the appointed killing-grounds. Three or four men
can easily guide and secure as many thousand seals, and the driving
is done leisurely, for if the animals become overheated, the fur is
injured. The men therefore allow them to rest from time to time, and
renew the drive by clattering and shouting, to startle the seals to
fresh exertions. They move with the docility of a flock of sheep, and
only the old bulls ever show fight. These last will occasionally make
a stand and act on the defensive; but as they are of little value
commercially, the bellicose oldsters are allowed to drop out and go
their own ways. It is only the animals between one and five years old
which are desired, for after the fifth year, the fur deteriorates, the
undergrowth becoming shorter and coarser. The thickest and finest pelts
are those of the third and fourth years. Beneath the skin is a dense
layer of oily blubber, which, unlike the blubber of the hair-seal, has
a very offensive odour.
The work of catching and pickling the pelts occupies June and July,
by which time the Company will have secured its legal number of one
hundred thousand, or as many short of the number as circumstances have
confined them to. After July, the seals begin to moult, and the skins
become of less and less value as the season advances. Altogether, three
hundred and ninety-eight persons are employed annually on the Pribylov
Islands in this work.
After the ‘catch’ is ended, the skins are taken in the Company’s
steamers to San Francisco, and thence nearly all or about nine-tenths
are shipped to London, for London has the monopoly of the preparation
of these furs for market. The skins as they come into England are
very different in appearance from what we see on the backs of our
lady-friends. They are indeed very unattractive; and all the coarse
stiff outer hair has to be carefully extracted before the rich
under-fur is seen. This last is then dyed and dressed. It is hurried
or defective dyeing and dressing which accounts for the variation in
prices of the finished furs, for there is little difference in the
original quality. The more careful and skilful the work of the furrier,
therefore, the dearer becomes the sealskin jacket.
The Alaska Commercial Company’s lease of the islands is for twenty
years from the 1st of May 1870, and they pay the government a rental of
eleven thousand pounds per annum for the islands, and a tax of eight
shillings for each sealskin, ten and sixpence for each fur-seal skin,
and fifty-five cents for every gallon of oil, shipped. The Company is
also bound to supply the inhabitants with a stipulated quantity of
dried fish, firewood, and salt; to maintain a school on each island for
the education of the natives; and not to sell or give any ‘distilled
spirituous liquors’ to the natives. We believe that the Company has in
only one year (1881) taken its full number of skins, the usual number
shipped being from ninety to ninety-five thousand. Between 1870 and
1881, the Company had paid the United States Treasury nearly three and
a half millions of dollars in rent and royalty.