RECENT CHANGES IN HABITS AND NUMBERS, ETC. 393 



hillsides, their moving troops looking like armies. This year 

 a part of the reserves located on new places, and by gathering 

 a few females around them appeared to be forming new rook- 

 eries. At the breaking up of the rookeries, during the last 

 days of July and the early part of August, all the females with 

 their young did not go to the coves as before, but a consider- 

 able number remained, herding with the young bulls, while the 

 pups learned to swim on the shore of the breeding-ground. 

 The weather proved exceptionally fine in November, December, 

 and January, and a part of the females remained with their 

 young a month later than usual, and groups of two-, three-, and 

 four-year-olds were seen in the water near the shore as late as 

 February. 



" During the latter part of the winter and spring of the follow- 

 ing year (1873), great masses of ice from the north passed the 

 island, coming from the northwest and drifting toward the south- 

 east, keeping the island nearly enclosed until the 23d of May, 

 and remaining in scattered belts for seven or eight days later. 

 The earliest arrival of the Seals that landed was May 15, and 

 all that arrived in May showed by their exhausted condition 

 that they had encountered obstructions in coming. At the 

 usual time, however, June 15, the rookeries were occupied by 

 the beachmasters, but there were a smaller number to a given 

 area than formerly, the great body of the reserves of 1809 hav- 

 ing become reduced one-half. The females showed the same 

 average increase of about 5 percent, over the previous year, 

 but none of the attempts to form new rookeries were con- 

 tinued. The increased number of females found room by nil- 

 ing up the spaces between the old rookeries through which 

 the young Seals had been in the habit of passing to the up- 

 lands to the rear of the reserves, and where such spaces were 

 not to be found the females crowded over the ridge into the 

 inner slopes, in some places actually locating on clear sand- 

 beaches. The closing of the passes by the breeding Seals had 

 the effect of forcing the young Seals to coast along the shore 

 entirely past the rookery, where they found resting places in 

 the beaches by themselves, thus rendering their separation 

 from the breeding Seals more complete than before, so that 

 when wanted for driving they were found in large bodies in- 

 stead of small groups as formerly, when they remained in the 

 lear of the rookeries, and when each group had to be driven 

 .separately before they could be massed for the general drive. 



