THE NORTHEAST POINT ROOKERIES. 333 



Young and idle bulls are lying about everywhere, and are a nuisance, as one must 

 be careful not to tread on them. Bachelors of various sizes lie about at low tide in 

 beds of kelp. The day is alternate sun, fog, and sunshine; the seals sleep soundly, 

 and when the sun conies out fail with their hind flippers. Three idle bulls are having 

 a battle. They bite, wrestle, and push, this last seeming to be the decisive point. If 

 a bull gets pushed he gives up and runs. 



The seals urinate and defecate on rookeries, and the placenta? decay. No notice 

 is taken of the smell by the seals. 



Events in harem life are slow, and one may watch for a long time without seeing 

 anything in particular occur. 



Do the testes of the males lie in the body when the animals are not rutting! Do 

 they retract after copulation, or do they continue down during the season? 1 



Seals have a poor memory; they start to do one thing, then go off and do some- 

 thing else. A cow starts to seek her pup, stops to scratch and rest; by and by 

 remembers the pup and begins calling and hunting again. 



A cow comes out of water and goes to rear; calls loudly; a pup comes; they 

 smell each other and the pup proceeds to nurse. This smelling seems to constitute 

 the recognition between mother and pup. Another wet cow drives off various pups 

 which approach, but shows no desire to find her own. 



On Kitovi, a yearling is seen playing in a pod of pups; he appears to be spending 

 the afternoon with them. The bull takes DO notice of him. One pup has been bitten 

 on the rump and is bloody. A wet female deliberately bites two wet pups and shakes 

 them; makes no effort to find her own. 



A bachelor blunders into the rookery and is expelled with great vigor; the last 

 bull into whose clutches he falls is so excited that he loses his balance and falls 10 or 

 15 feet from the cliff into the sea. 



A female comes out of the water calling and hunts about; a pup goes to meet her, 

 but before it catches up the cow goes to another part of the rookery, sits down, and 

 dries herself. After half an hour she calls again; the pup conies bleating; they smell 

 each other and he proves acceptable and nurses. The pup in hunting is stupid. It 

 climbs over large stones instead of going around them. Other females snap at it 

 as it goes along. 



DR. JORDAN'S NOTES. 



On the way to Northeast Point I took, for museum purposes, the skin of a yearling 

 bachelor accidentally killed in the recent drive at Poloviua. A pod of 20 yearlings 

 were seen in pond at the killing ground, where they took refuge after the drive on the 

 23d and have remained since. 



VOSTOCHNI ROOKERY. 



Hutchinson Hill, at Northeast Point, looking north, compared with Mr. Macoun's 

 photograph of July 22, 1892, shows an evident falling off'. The general line of massing 

 in that year went back two or three yards farther southeast and was less broken into 

 individual harems. Six small harems are now above the mass. Then there were 5 



1 See later observations iu October, showing that they are under control of the animal and are 

 withdrawn at will into the body. 



