448 THE FUR SEALS OF THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 



The south end of Bering Island is wild, forbidding, and picturesque to the last 

 degree. Enormous cliffs rise a thousand or more feet high at Stotchnoi, Tolstoi, and 

 other projecting points. The coast is much more wall-like than the jagged slopes of 

 Medni and its peaks quite as high. 



NikolsM. The houses of Nikolski village are of various usually two colors 

 each, sky blue and pea green, yellow and pink, gray and brick red, dove color and 

 green, pink and pale blue. The church is creamy pink, trimmed with sky blue; the 

 roof is slate green, the dome and cross yellow, with sky blue ball at base of cross. 

 Many handsome white skinned Russian children are to be seen in the village. 



GENERAL NOTES. 1 



Severnoye or North rookery has yielded 5,350 skins to date; Poludinnoye or 

 South rookery, 380 skins up to August 13. Drives are still being made on Bering 

 Island ; one occurred on August 22. The bulls are all gone. 



There are a very few adult bulls on Bering Island, not enough to keep the 

 holostiaki off the rookeries even in breeding season. As a result for two years females, 

 males, pups, and all are driven up. The level condition of the rookeries and driveways 

 makes it possible to capture practically every available young male, and the escape 

 of these into wigged age takes place very rarely. Probably not more than one or two 

 bachelors each season so escape. It seems probable that the young males only herd 

 separately because they are forced to do so by the bulls, and they cease to do so just 

 as soon as the bulls leave or because too few to keep them off. 



South rookery, on Bering Island, had only 3 bulls this season, and they went 

 away early. Mr. Grebnitzi thinks this small number is enough to impregnate all the 

 cows, and therefore fully enough for rookery purposes. Mr. Barrett Hamilton says 

 that every adult cow on both the Bering Island rookeries has a pup. 



No such close killing is even suggested as having ever occurred on St. Paul. 

 It is not evident from conditions of Bering Island that it does any harm. The sole 

 important function of the bull is reproduction, and if there are enough for this nothing 

 further is needed. But such close killing should not be attempted without careful 

 inspection and investigation of the question of how many bulls are necessary. 



The bulls on St. Paul Island could never have been so closely killed as on 

 Bering Island, where everyone above 2 years old that hauls out and many 2-year-olds 

 are taken. No available seal escapes, and no especial thought is given to the bulls 

 except that the few that have in past years escaped have been and are sufficient. On 

 St. Paul Island, Sivtuch Rock, Otter Island, and Lagoon rookeries, which are not 

 driven at all, would insure the escape of sufficient bulls if no other provision were 

 made. 



MEDNI ISLAND. ' 



We reached Preobrajenski, on Medni Island, at 9 o'clock on the evening of August 

 24. It is a little wind-swept village on a grassy opening at the foot of cliffs, rising 

 nearly 2,000 feet vertically like the crags of Norwegian fjords. Down the runways 

 sweep the great wind storms in fitful gusts, the "willie waughs" of the sailors. 



'Obtained iu an interview with Eniil Kluge, agent of the Russian Fur Company at Nikolski, on 

 Bering Island. 



