OBSERVATIONS ON THE HEKDED SEALS. 463 



After a while the seals try the beach at a point beyond the stick aud are 

 allowed to go, to see what they will do. Every few rods one drops out aud returus 

 to the water. Other bauds of seals swiin iu, and in course of half an hour there are a 

 hundred seals sitting on the bank in the shallow water. They are growling and 

 lighting in mock fashion among themselves. They are nearly all old bulls, 

 Occasionally a little pod of three or four fellows set out on the trail of those going 

 up the slope. Most of them come back after a few rods. Then all those on the 

 shore start, but the boy drives them back. They all swim down the lagoon, but in 

 ten minutes are back in the shallow water again. They act exactly like a flock of 

 sheep would if herded near a wheat field by a boy. 



The natives say the seals can smell the sea from Tolstoi, which is to the 

 windward, and that is the reason why they want to get out there. 



Going back along the course of the drive I find 2 old bulls that dropped out of 

 the Hock and hid in the grass. They are lying sleeping, but on my approach they 

 rouse up aud show fight. Try to drive one on the lagoon side into the water, but he 

 will not go. He charges at me very fiercely. The other fellow simply lies low and 

 growls. 



Up the side of Telegraph Hill is a big bull making a zigzag track. He is 

 halfway up. The grass is very tall, but he is making good progress. He, too, is 

 making for Tolstoi, but is going directly away from the lagoon. He toils on aud 

 finally disappears over the summit. It is seal fashion to take the absurd course he 

 has chosen. 



Everything seems to indicate the entire feasibility of keeping the seals indefinitely 

 in the lagoon, but the Aleuts continue to insist that it can not be done overnight. 

 Mckoli Krukof, one of the most intelligent natives guarding the seals, says the a-nknals 

 can not be held. He says they have to go into the sea, and no man can stop them. 

 Thinking the dislike of guarding the seals may affect his opinion, I told him that if 

 the natives continued to insist that the seals could not be held, it would be necessary, 

 in order to prove it, to keep them there night and day. It was explained, however* 

 that, if next year it was thought best to so herd the seals, the lagoon would be fenced 

 and the Aleuts would not have to guard. 



This settled Nickoli at once. He declared that with a fence there was no question 

 about holding the seals. 



SEPTEMBER 5. 

 THE HERDED SEALS. 



Very rainy and disagreeable. Mr. Clark went out at noon to see how the seals 

 in the lagoon were getting on. There are 300 swimming about in the water under 

 the lee of the bluffs toward Tolstoi. None are seen to attempt to get out by way of 

 the channel. Some could be heard growling and snorting on the rocks under the 

 cliffs on the other side, showing that they have landed there. 



At the sand beach toward Tolstoi about 100 were hauled out on the shore. As 

 many as a dozen separate trails ran in the direction of Tolstoi, clearly marked in the 

 long grass, showing where as many bands of seals had traveled off toward Tolstoi. 

 Some of the trails merge together, but for the most part they are distinct throughout 

 their entire course. They evidently did not propose to follow in one another's tracks, 

 which is true seal style. 



