he 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 noticed that he rolled the
seal over, balancing it squarely on its back. Then he made half a dozen
sweeping strokes--all so expert and accurate that not a slip was made
with the knife, nor was any blubber left on the skin. In less than two
minutes, by the watch, he had skinned the seal, leaving on the carcass
nothing but a small patch of the upper lip where the stiff mustache
grows, the insignificant tail, and the coarse hide of the flippers.

The whole si