The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1882-07-27

| mouths, and while their bodies writhe
with exertion and rage, their heads dart
out and back with surprising swiftness.
Their teeth tear out deep cutters in one
another's sides, the blood streams down,
and furious roaring mixed with whist
ling sounds, never ceases while the bat
tie lasts. These fights are always be-
tween males, and ends as soon as one
gives up the coveted position to the
other. Last May, one old bull fought
between forty and fifty battles, and when
the fighting season was over he lorded it
proudly over his family of fifteen or
twenty females, although one of his eyes
had been gouged out and his front was
covered with gashes. When the males
take up their positions they must remain
on guard day and night. 20 that they
have no opportunity to go after food IN
til the end of the season, in the early
part of August Hence they fast for
three months or more. When they
come up from the sea they are so fat that
the blubber is packed about their shout
ders in unsightly masses. At the end of
the season they are lean, limp, abject and
spiritless, hardly able to crawl back into
the sea.
The COWS or Female seals generally
make their appearance about the middle
of June. The bulls then have their last
desperate fights, and those who remain
beach monopolize the society of the fe-
males. AS result of this arrangement
about two-thirds of the youthful male
seals are cut off from female companion
ship. These seals are known as the
bachelors and herd together by thousands
away from the breeding grounds, some
times miles distant. These seals are the
ones captured for their furs, and they
are actually driven along over the ground
to the slaughter fields. The Aleuts en-
ployed by the company which has a
lease of the seal fisheries slip in between
the doing seals and the water. The first
impulse of the seals when they see men
in the way they turn and scramble up
the land. The Aleuts follow keeping
the seals together and driving them
ahead as if it were a herd of swine they
were directing. Singular as it may seem
in view of the unwieldliness of the seal
when on land, it is asserted when hard
pressed, seal can lope along as fast as
a man can run, but it is soon exhausted
and falls down helplessly Ordina-
rily drove of seals can travel
at the rate of half a mile an hour.
Three or four men can manage as many
thousand seals. There are frequent
halts to allow the seals to rest. The
painting animals fan themselves with
their hind fippers, and when they have
gotten their wind again, shout and the
clatter of bones from the Aleuts starts
the herd on its stumbling, shu filing way
again. The young males are as docile as
sheep; an old bull will fight sooner than
be driven, and if such one is caught in
herd he is allowed to drop behind, as
his fur is of little or no value.
The author Of this report, Mr.. Henry
w. Elliot, is naturalist attached to the
Smithsonian institution, and writes from
personal observation. He thinks that if
only the bachelor seals are hunted and
the breeding places are not disturbed.
the seal lands of Alaska will remain a
regular source of support to the fur
trade. But if the breeding grounds are
hunted, the seal will be exterminated or
driven away. Many years ago the shores
of Patagonia and the Antarctic islands
swarmed with millions of fur seals, and
now they have become rare animals
where once they abounded.