"Not the same at all. Different, entirely. Don't even belong to the same group of animal. They look differently. Their habits are unlike. Oh, they're dissimilar in every way."
"Just how?" asked Colin curiously.
"In the first place, the sexes of the hair or common seal are the same size, not like the fur
seal, where the sea-catch is four or five times bigger than the female. Then they don't breed in harems and the male hair seal does not stay on shore. A fur seal swims with his fore flippers, a true seal with his hind flippers. A fur seal stands upright on his fore flippers, a hair seal lies supine. A fur seal has a neck, a hair seal has practically none. A fur seal naturally has fur, the hair seal has no undercoat whatever. A pup fur seal is black, a pup hair seal is white. Different? Obviously! Pity the old name 'sea bear' died out. It would have prevented confusion between fur seal and true seal."
With this beginning, the agent passed into a detailed description of the anatomy of the two different kinds of seal, and wound up with an earnest panegyric of his fur seal family. By the time the agent had completed his earnest defense of the sea bear, lest it should be confused with the more common seal, the two had reached the killing-grounds, where the natives were awaiting the agent's word to begin their work. He stepped up to the foreman of the gang and with him looked over the first 'pod' of about fifty that had been selected for killing, noting one or two that looked either too young or too old or with fur in
bad condition, and these points settled, he gave the word to begin.
The 'pod' of seals was surrounded by eight men, each armed with a club about five and a half feet long, the thickness of a baseball bat at one end and three inches in diameter at the other. Behind him, each of the natives had laid his stabbing-knife, skinning-knife, and whetstone. At the word the killing began. Each native brought down his club simultaneously, the first blow invariably crushing the slight, thin bones of the fur seal's skull and stretching it out unconscious. The six or seven seals that fell to each man's share were clubbed in less than a minute for the lot.
The Aleuts then dropped their clubs and dragged out the stunned seals so that no one of them touched another, and taking their stabbing-knives, drove them into the hearts of the seals between the fore flippers. In no case did Colin see any evidence that the seal had felt a moment's suffering.
"Now," said the agent, "watch this, if you like seeing skilful work. Skinning has got to be done rapidly. Precisely! Else the seal will 'heat' and spoil the fur."
Watching the native nearest to him, Colin no