ALASKA. 79 



"North" Kookery bas 750 foet of sea-mar^qn, witli 



150 feet of average depth, making;' ground for 52, 000 



" Starry Ateel" Itookery has 500 feet of sea-margin, 

 with 125 feet of average de])tli, making ground 

 for ;j(), 420 



^'Zai)adnie" Kookery has GOO feet of sea-margin, 

 with 00 feet of average depth, making ground for. IS, 000 



A grand total for Saint George's Island of 



males, females, and young, of 103, 420 



These figures show a grand total of 3,103,070 breeding-seals 

 and their young, and this aggregate is entirely exclusive of the 

 great numbers of the non-breeding seals, whieh are never permit- 

 ted to come upon the same ground with the females by the 

 males in charge. This class of seals, to which the killing is con- 

 fined, come up on the land and sea-beach between the rookeries, 

 going to and from the sea at irregular intervals during the sea- 

 son. It has no systematic, definite method, like the breeding- 

 class, of filling up to certain bounds and keeping so for several 

 weeks at a time, and is, therefore, beyond reach for ground 

 npon which to found calculation, and I can only give an esti- 

 mate based upon my close observation with especial reference 

 to this subject, and this is my conclusion : 



The non-breeding seals, consisting of all the yearlings and all 

 the males under six or seven years, seem nearly equal in number 

 to the breeding-seals, and I put them down at 1,500,000 as a 

 fair estimate, and make the sum of the seal-life on the Prybilov 

 IsUmds over four million seven hundred thousand. 



The seals after leaving these islands in the autumn and early 

 winter do not visit land again until the time of return, next 

 April, May, and June, to the grounds here, or those of the Rus- 

 sian " Copper" and " Bering" Islands. They spread themselves 

 out over the vast North Pacific, following schools offish, or fre- 

 quenting shoals and banks Avhere an abundance of fishy food is 

 found. They can sleep with the greatest comfort and sound- 

 ness on the surface of the water, and in this state they are often 

 surprised by the natives of the northwest coast, all the way up 

 and down, from the Columbia River to Bering Sea. On the 

 killing-grounds at Saint George, June, 1873, the natives would 

 frequently call my attention to seals that they Avere skinning, 

 in which buck-shot were imbedded and encysted just under the 



