The Seal.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 896, 3 May 1889, Page 5

The Seal.

The domestic economy of the fur seal is probably unique. Early in the spring, about the first week in May, the old male seals arrive on the coast, drag themselves ashore, and proceed each to survey and plan out the spot of ground which he designs for his home dnring the summer weeks. From the moment of this arrival the life of the * seecatchie,’ as these old bulls are called by the natives, is one long struggle—first fighting for their ground, and then holding it against all comers until nearly the middle of June, when the cows begin to appear, flocking up in vast numbersfrom the sea. Happy then are the bulls who have managed to secure the front places along the shore. Hager and breathless they wait at the water’s edge, cajoling and inviting and encouraging the timid cows who are literally fought over by their amphibious lords. Whilst the old ‘ see-catchie,’who has placed one of the timid beauties in safety in his plot, is busy inviting another ashore, his neighbour in the next rank behind will, by fair or foul means remove the first comer to his own quarters ; and this process may be repeated again and again until the luckless prize sometimes reaches the outermost lines of the ‘ rookery,’ a quarter or even half a mile from the shore, very much the worse for her pa33age, having been passed from hand to hand, or, more literally, from mouth to mouth, and sometimes almost torn in pieces during the struggle. All this is accompanied by roarings and bellowiDgs and bleatings, which cause the sound of a large seal rookery to be heard far out to sea, above even the thunder of the breakers. In the end, some of the bulls manage to secure as many as from forty to fifty cows, whilst others, weaker or less favourably situated in the - rookery,’ have to be contented with far smaller numbers. Over these, and the little pups which are born a few days afterwards, the ‘see-catchie’ maintain an iron rule, defending tham with their own lives, and apparently, so far as has been ascertained, never leaving their post during the wfiole season, even for food or water. It is believed that daring this whole period the bulls are entirely sustained by their own fat. On arrival they weigh from 4001 b to 6001 b, and are described as shaking like a dish of jelly with fatness. Gradually they wear away, till at the end of the season they are mere masses of skin and bone, worn out with fasting, fighting, excitement, want of sleep, and often covered with the scars they have received in their furious conflicts with each other. By September the whole colony seems to have broken up. The clockwork order which once prevailed has gradually relaxed. The little pups begin to learn to swim, playing and chattering with each other like so many children as they become at home in the water, and then coiling them, selves up on the shore in tens of thousands to have a nap. By the end of November most of the seals, old and young, are again at sea, and lost to human sight till the next spring brings a renewal of this extraordinary spectacle. It is estimated that nearly five million seals assemble year by year on the Pribylov islands. But now comes another remarkable fact. From one-third to one-half of these vast multitudes have no place in the ‘ rookeries.’ These are the young male seals under six years of age, who are called by the Russians ‘ holluschickie ’ or « bachelors,’ and who ar© * compelled to herd apart by themselves and away from the breeding-grounds,* never being allowed by the old * see-catchie to put so much as a flipper on or near the rookeries, on pain of death or fearful mutilation. They are iu some instances allowed a clear path through the rookeries to their own * hauling-grounds ’in the rear; bn* should one venture to loiter for even a moment on his way, hs will be literally torn limb from limb by the vigilant * see-catchie.’ Consequently for the most part the holluschickie .avoid such dangerous neighbourhoods, and choose unoccupied beaches, where they haul themsolvos out of the water, and cover the whole shore for miJes, thousands npon thousands leaping, playing, sleeping, as the fancy takes them.