364 CALLORHINUS URSINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. 



" Fifth. That the cows bear their first young when three years 

 of age. 



" Sixth. That the cows are limited to a single pup each, as a 

 rule, in bearing, and this is born soon after landing; no excep- 

 tion has thus far been witnessed. 



" Seventh. That the bulls who have held the harems leave for 

 the water in a straggling manner at the close of the rutting- 

 season, greatly emaciated, not returning, if at all, until six or 

 seven weeks have elapsed, and that the regular systematic 

 distribution of families over the rookeries is at an end for the 

 season, a general medley of young bulls now free to come up 

 from the water, old males who have not been on seraglio duty, 

 cows, and an immense majority of pups, since only about 25 

 per cent, of their mothers are out of the water at a time. 



" The rookeries lose their compactness and definite bounda- 

 ries by the 25th to 28th July, when the pups begin to haul back 

 and to the right and left in small squads at first, but as the 

 season goes on, by the 18th August, they swarm over three and 

 four times the area occupied by them when born on the rook- 

 eries. The system of family arrangement and definite compact- 

 ness of the breeding-classes begins at this date to break up. 



"Eighth. That by the 8th or 10th of August the pups born 

 nearest the water begin to learn to swim, and by the 15th or 

 20th of September they are all familiar more or less with it. 



"Xinth. That by the middle of September the rookeries are 

 entirely broken up, only confused, straggling bauds of cows, 

 young bachelors, pups, and small squads of old bulls, crossing 

 and recrossing the ground in an aimless, listless manner ; the 

 season is over, but many of these seals do not leave these 

 grounds until driven off by snow and ice, as late as the end of 

 December and 12th of January. 



u 



["Hauling-grounds." ] This recapitulation is the sum and 

 substance of my observations on the rookeries, and I will now 

 turn to the consideration of the hauling-grouuds, upon which 

 the yearlings and almost all the males under six years come 

 out from the sea in squads from a hundred to a thousand, and, 

 later in the season, by hundreds of thousands, to sleep and 

 frolic, going from a quarter to half a mile back from the sea, as 

 at English Bay. 



"This class of seals are termed 'holluschukie' (or 'bachelor 

 seals') by the natives. It is with the seals of this division that 

 these people are most familiar, since they are, together with a 



