18 G. E. H. BARRETT-HAMILTON [july 



Fur Seal, so graphically described by Mr. H. W. Elliott : how the herds 

 which spend the winter months in the warmer waters of the Pacific 

 south of their island homes, move gradually northwards in the early 

 part of the year, and in spring, land on the rookery shores, the females 

 to give birth to their young, the old males to commence a jealous 

 watch over their hardly-won harems, which they only forsake when 

 hunger and fatigue or the valour of a rival forces them to leave their 

 posts ; how the young males, unable to face their seniors and win for 

 themselves places on the coveted rookery beach, while away the 

 summer in sleep and frolic on their own hauling-grounds, whence the 

 sealers take their toll of skins ; how the seals remain in the neighbour- 

 hood of the rookeries until the cold gales of autumn warn them to 

 again depart southward. Such, in broad outline, is the natural history 

 of the Fur Seal, and with such general matters of common knowledge 

 I have here nothing to do. It will be my business rather to attract 

 attention to certain of the less known features of what I may call the 

 social life of the animal. 



I assume also a knowledge of such sealing terms as bull, cow, 

 bachelor, pup, harem, rookery, and hauling-ground. Any further 

 technical terms which it may be found necessary to use will be ex- 

 plained as the occasion arises. 



It must be clearly remembered, however, that my visit to the 

 rookeries was paid at a time when the numbers of the seals had ad- 

 mittedly decreased since the date of the descriptions of some of the 

 older authorities, as, for instance, those of Mr. H. W. Elliott. Hence, 

 if what I saw does not always quite closely correspond with the observa- 

 tions of older naturalists, it does not necessarily follow that one or the 

 other of us is in the wrong. It may be that both they and I are right, 

 and that the differences which it is our duty to record actually existed 

 and are due to the prevalence of different conditions on the rookeries 

 at different times, consequent on their disturbance by man. 



My Experience. 



My personal experience of the Northern Eur Seal was gained in 

 the two breeding-seasons of 1896 and 1897, during which I actually 

 lived in turn on every island where there is any important rookery at 

 the present time. On one island or another I had the seals under my 

 observation almost throughout the duration of their summer stay on 

 land. My movements were as follows : — In 1896 1 gained my first 

 introduction to the seals at the small rookery on Eobben Island (in 

 the Okhotsk Sea), which I examined on July 11. In the same year I 

 spent July 19 to August 10 on Bering's Island, and August 11 to 

 25 on Copper Island, on the western side of the Bering's Sea. I 

 spent September 1 to October 4 on St. Paul Island (including two 

 days at sea among the pelagic sealers in the United States Revenue 



