ESTIMATES OF NUMBERS. 83 



plainly to be drawn from this is that at the time in question Kitovi rookery by a most 

 liberal estimate bad about 20,000 breeding cows. Mr. Elliott would have us believe it 

 had nearly 160,000. 



SPILKI AND POLOVINA. 



Two more examples may be cited in this connection. Mr. Elliott ascribes to Spilki 

 rookery a population of 8,000 cows and pups in 1874 and something like 260 bulls. 

 Tliis was a small rookery under the hill behind the village of St. Paul, afterwards 

 abandoned. It is recorded by Agent Beaman in the log for the year 1879 l that this 

 rookery on June 20 (a date at which all the harem bulls must have been in place) had 

 23 bulls. This is less than one-tenth of Mr. Elliott's estimate. 



In the same year Mr. Beaman records, under date of June 10, that there were " a 

 couple of thousand bulls" on Polovina rookeries, where Mr. Elliott estimates fully 

 10,000 in 1874. 



While these entries do not give us definite proof as to the early condition of these 

 rookeries, yet they clearly and conclusively show that Mr. Elliott's figures are grossly 

 exaggerated. 



PERSONAL ESTIMATES DIFFER. 



To sum the whole matter up, we are unable to accept Mr. Elliott's estimate as 

 representing anything more than an individual opinion greatly overdrawn by a too- 

 vivid imagination. The value of individual opinions in matters of this kind is well 

 shown by a comparison of the estimate of Mr. Elliott with that of Lieut. Washburn 

 Maynard, who was on the islands in 1874, with him. Lieutenant Maynard estimates 

 the total population of the rookeries at 6,000,000, as against Mr. Elliott's figures of 

 4,700,000. A difference of a million one way or another seemed to be a matter of no 

 moment. 



LOOSE USE OF FIGURES. 



That Mr. Elliott himself did not originally attach close and definite meaning to 

 his own estimate is evident from the discrepancy already referred to, whereby he 

 assumes in his total of 3,193,420 "breeding seals and young" that only 1,000,000 are 

 pups. Further, on the basis of this birthrate, which is an understatement of his own 

 estimate, he finds that after making due allowance for an " extreme estimate of loss 

 sustained at sea " there will still be left "180,000 seals in good condition that can safely 

 be killed every year." The quota never exceeded 100,000, and the turning back 

 annually of 80,000 young males to grow up as bulls would by 1880 have given the 

 island a stock of approximately 800,000 bulls. This, of course, never occurred, for 

 the simple reason that no such number of males in excess of the quota ever existed 

 on the islands. 



In making the above criticisms of Mr. Elliott's census, it has not been our purpose 

 simply to tear down and condemn work which in many respects under the circum- 

 stances deserves commendation ; but a disposition has of late been manifested to insist 

 upon the absolute correctness of these figures, and in setting them aside it becomes 

 necessary for us to give reasons for such action. 



1 Extracts from log of St. Paul, Pt. II, date of June 20, 1879. 



