When I first returned, in 1873, from the Seal Islands, those authors, whose conclusions were accepted prior to my studies there, had agreed in declaring that the sea-lion, so common off the port of San Francisco, was the same animal also common in Alaska, and the Pribylov Islands in especial; but my drawings from life, and studies, quickly pointed out the error, for it was seen that the creature most familiar to the Californians was an entirely different animal from my subject of study on the Seal Islands. In other words, while scattered examples of the Eumetopias were, and are, unquestionably about and off the harbor of San Francisco, yet nine tenths of the sea-lions there observed were a different animal—they were the Zalophus californianus. This Zalophus is not much more than half the size of Eumetopias, relatively; it has the large, round, soft eye of the fur-seal, and the more attenuated Newfoundland-dog-like muzzle; and it never roars, but breaks out incessantly with a honk, honk, honking bark, or howl.
No example of Zalophus has ever been observed in the waters of Bering Sea, nor do I believe that it goes northward of Cape Flattery, or really much above Mendocino, Cal.
According to the natives of St. George, some sixty or seventy years ago the Eumetopias held almost exclusive possession of that island being there in great numbers, some two or three hundred thousand strong; and they aver, also, that the fur-seals then were barely permitted to land by these animals, and in no great number; therefore, they assert they were directed by the Russians (i.e., their own ancestry) to hunt and worry the sea-lions off from the island: the result was that, as the sea-lions left, the fur-seals came, so to-day Callorhinus occupies nearly the same ground which Eumetopias alone covered sixty years ago. I call attention to this statement of the people because it is, or seems to be, corroborated in the notes of a French naturalist and traveller, who, in his description of the Island of St. George, which he visited sixty years ago, makes substantially the same representation.[142]
That great intrinsic value to the domestic service of the Aleutes rendered by the flesh, fat, and sinews of this animal, together with its skin, arouses the natives of St. Paul and St. George, who annually make drives of “seevitchie,” by which they capture two or three hundred, as the case may be. On St. George driving is positively difficult, owing to the character of the land itself: hence, a few only are secured there; but at St Paul unexceptional advantages are found on Northeast Point for the capture of these shy and timid brutes. The natives of St. Paul, therefore, are depended upon to secure the necessary number of skins required by both islands for their boats and other purposes. This capture of the sea-lion is the only serious business which the people have on St. Paul. It is a labor of great care, industry, and some physical risk for the Aleutian hunters.[143]
By reference to my sketch-map of Northeast Point rookery the reader will notice a peculiar neck or boot-shaped point, which I have designated as Sea-lion Neck. That area is a spot upon which a large number of sea-lions are always to be found during the season. As they are so shy and sure to take to water upon the appearance or presence of man near by, the natives adopt this plan: Along by the middle or end of September, as late sometimes as November, and after the fur-seal rookeries have broken up for the year, fifteen or twenty of the very best men in the village are selected by one of their chiefs for a sea-lion rendezvous at Northeast Point. They go up there with their provisions, tea, and sugar, and blankets, and make themselves at home in the barrabora and house which I have located on the sketch-map of Novastoshnah, prepared to stay, if necessary, a month, or until they shall get the whole drove together of two or three hundred sea-lions.
The “seevitchie,” as the natives call those animals, cannot be approached successfully by daylight, so these hunters lie by in this house of Webster’s until a favorable night comes along, one in which the moon is partially obscured by drifting clouds and the wind blows over them from the rookery where the sea-lions lie. Such an opportunity being afforded, they step down to the beach at low water and proceed to creep on all fours across surf-beaten sand and boulders up between the dozing herd, and the high-water mark where it rests. In this way a small body of natives, crawling along in Indian file, may pass unnoticed by sea-lion sentries, which doubtless in that uncertain light see, but confound the forms of their human enemies with those of seals. When the creeping Aleutes have all reached the strip of beach that is left bare by ebb-tide, and is between the surf and those unsuspecting animals, at a given signal from their crawling leader they at once leap to their feet, shout, yell, brandishing their arms and firing off pistols, while the astonished and terrified lions roar, and flounder in every direction.
ALEUTES CAPTURING SEA-LIONS
Natives creeping up between a herd of dozing Sea-lions and the water, at low tide during a moonlight night, at Garden Cove, St. George’s Island; getting into position for “springing the alarm”
