THE HEIGHT OF THE SEASON. 



53 



was, on June 28, represented by four of these monster harems located at intervals 

 along the shore and projecting but slightly above the bowlder beach. They were then 

 on the point of breaking, and already around the edges were numbers of small harems 

 of one or two cows which had plainly been stolen from the larger mass. In the 

 course of a few days thereafter the disintegration of these abnormal harems began, and 

 they became broken up into numerous smaller families under hitherto idle bulls. The 

 seals later became spread back over the entire flat. A similar course of development 

 marked the formation of all the large masses on Reef rookery. 



Where the rookeries occupied the narrow bowlder beach, as on Kitovi and Lukauin, 

 Lagoon or Gorbatch, the distribution of the harems was more regular, and when the 

 period of scattering and fusion came, they were united in a more or less even band 

 throughout the entire length of the rookery. 



DAILY ROOKERY COUNTS. 



With a view of determining the relative condition of the rookeries from day to 

 day, daily counts were begun on Lukanin and Kitovi rookeries with the first arrival 

 of cows and were kept up throughout the season, or from June 12 to July 31. A part of 

 the record of these counts has already been given to illustrate the arrival of the cows. 

 The full record will be found in Appendix I. The following is a synopsis of the count 

 on a part of Kitovi rookery known as the Amphitheater : 



Synopsis of Kitovi rookery, 1897. 



THE HEIGHT OF THE SEASON. 



These counts show that the population of breeding cows gradually increases from 

 the beginning of the season, about June 10, until a climax is reached about the middle 

 of July. It then decreases until at the close of the breeding season, about August 1, 

 it numbers about one-half the maximum population present at any one time, or about 

 one-fourth of the actual rookery population. There is a temporary fluctuation during 

 the first ten days of August, while the virgin 2-year-old cows are present on the 

 rookeries. For the rest of the season the adult population remains at about the 

 point reached at the end of July, probably varying more or less from day to day 

 according to the condition of the weather. 



It had until 189G been currently believed that at the period known as the "height 

 of the season," say from July 10 to 20, rookery conditions were fixed and all or prac- 

 tically all the breeding animals present. The counting of pups in August in 1896 first 

 dispelled this error, by showing that the pups outnumbered two to one the breeding 

 females counted in the height of the season. 



