SABATCHA DIRA AND ZAPALATA. 453 



COMPARISON OF COMMANDER AND PRIBILOF SEALS. 



The rookeries of Medni Island look decidedly unfamiliar and the cows very much 

 unlike those of St. Paul. The cows are evidently much darker in color, though the 

 shades vary from pale to dark, as on St. Paul. But there is still very little of silvery 

 gray, cinnamon color, or warm browns. Sooty shades, light and dark, prevail, and 

 brownish or reddisli wholly wanting; they are not at all rusty. 



Compared with the St. Paul seals the head and neck of the Commander Island 

 cows are smaller and slenderer, the snout sharper, the neck more crane like compared 

 with the stout body. As to the bulls, not enough are left to show the difference, if 

 such exists. 



There is no doubt that the Pribilof seals will prove to be a different subspecies from 

 CallorMnm ursinus. 



SABATCHA DIRA AND PALATA. 



Sabatcha Dira, meaning the Dog's Hole, is a projecting ridge of rock which has 

 a small rookery; some 75 pups are on the rock, a few starving. One yearling female 

 is among them, very small; not over 30 pounds. She is very dark; darker than any 

 adult on the Pribilofs. 



Palata rookery, which comes next to the southwest, lies on a steep landslide, mostly 

 of gray clay, with some smaller stones. Roughly speaking, it is about the size of 

 Polovina rookery of St. Paul. Its location is exceedingly picturesque. It extends a 

 hundred feet or more in height from the sea, making a steep slide. Dr. Stejneger 

 says (p. 45) in his report for 1895 that numerous seals were buried here under the slide 

 which occurred in 1849. He also notes that another slide occurred in 1893 above the 

 old one. The broken sod above the rookery shows more landslides are likely to 

 follow. 



Along the side next the cliff is a little brook which has worn out a gully of narrow 

 width, in which the seals run and in which dead pups lie. The water from this stream 

 is the cause of the collapse of the side of the hill. 



About 12 males, 4 or 5 years old, were seen on Palata. These formed harems 

 chiefly among 2-year-old cows, which are present in small numbers, in the back part 

 of the rookery. The young cows are dusky, like the old. The bulls playing beach 

 master are young themselves and seem perfectly contented. Mr. Grebuitzi thinks 

 that even 3-year-old bulls can impregnate cows. 



ZAPALATA. 



Zapalata lies to the south of the point and near Palata. It is a most surprising 

 place a crescent-shaped bight, with smooth, curved, gently-sloping beach of round, 

 gray granite bowlders. It is bounded on every side except that next the sea by vertical 

 cliffs about 800 feet high. These cliffs form a narrow cone between this bight and 

 Palata on the north and Sikatchiuskaya on the southwest. Wall-like reefs stand up 

 from the water in and about the bay, making it a good place for the pups to swim and 

 hard for the boats to enter. No drive is possible, but men can scramble down some 

 one of the gullies to the beach, and boats can enter in very fair weather. 



Sikatchinskaya is a smaller bight just beyond, very similar in shape and accessible 

 only by boats. 



