360 THE FUR SEALS OF THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 



Sands. The tip of Tolstoi is formed not of broken columns, but projecting wall-like 

 dikes. The last harem is beside a grassy projecting wall, with a smooth slope on 

 one side. 



The preferred rookery ground is a gentle slope with large angular blocks of lava 

 evenly strewn between with hard lava sand. From these sometimes run hard benches 

 of broken lava, in which sand predominates over the rocks, as at Tolstoi. 



The sandy places are generally avoided, but the concave flat of Tolstoi can not 

 be wholly avoided. On this sand is washed down from above and becomes packed by 

 the movement of the seals. In such places occur the greatest natural destruction of 

 pups. Gentle rocky slopes, but more or less strewn with bowlders, are found at 

 Zapadni, Little Zapadui, the Reef, under Hutchinson Hill, at Polovina, and Little 

 Polovina. Other rookeries lie on the rounded, waterworn bowlder beaches, without 

 hill slope behind. Such are Zapadui Reef, Lagoon, the gi eater part of Vostochni and 

 Morjovi, and part of the Reef. Irregular rocky areas under cliffs, and not capable of 

 much extension, are found on Kitovi, Lukauin, Tolstoi bluffs, part of Polovina, and 

 much of Gorbatch. In the cliff portions and on the bowlder beaches the harems are 

 well separated, having natural boundaries, and there is no crowding. 



In the great masses, as at Vostochni and Reef, on rather level ground and among 

 rocks, the harems are larger, partly confluent, and there is much more fighting among 

 the bulls. All rookeries have a front of rounded bowlders except where the cliffs 

 abut on deep water, as at Kitovi and Tolstoi bluffs. On Gorbatch the harems extend 

 more or less up a steep, hard, smooth slope of lava gravel and sand. 



Open sand beaches are never frequented by breeding bulls or cows, though 

 bachelors and injured bulls like to sleep there. The regular places for the bachelors, 

 however, are on the rocky edges, where the sand is packed firm. At Zapadni the 

 former limits of the hauling grounds are clearly evident, as is their diminution, from 

 the slow creeping green of the seal grass. The bachelors as they diminish tend to 

 hug the rookery edge, and the ground first vacated is always that farthest from the 

 rookery. 



ZAPADNI ROOKERY. 



The trip to Zapadni was made in a boat along the east side of the rookery. There 

 is a dead hair seal on the rocks here. There is one harem on a rock in the sea. 



The dead cows proved to be too rotten for examination, and the place was so thick 

 with bulls that they could scarcely be approached. Another rotten cow is seen on 

 the beach, but can not be examined. All these died at the same time as the shot 

 cows at Morjovi, but the cause of death can not here be ascertained. 



What seemed to be a dead pup lying on the rocks proved to be one asleep. It has 

 been wet by the wash of the sea. The crevices of the rocks are filled with wet pups, 

 who can only get out by swimming. They swim freely, some of them in rather deepish 

 water. A drowned pup must be a rare occurrence, as they soon learn to swim. One 

 was seen to leap in and swim about. It could not keep its head above the water, but 

 splashed about a fourth of a minute, his head all the time under the water. Then it 

 came back to the rock and climbed out. Another did the same thing. Another went 

 out a few feet, head mostly above water, and circled back to where he started. He 

 has learned to keep the nape down and the nose up. 



