ALASKA. 139 



and not very lar«4'0, but by the niiddlii Jind end of Sei)tcrnber, 

 until they leiive in Is'oveinber, tlicy chister to^^ether, sleeping 

 and liobckiug by tens of thousands. A mother comes u}) from 

 the water, where she lias been to wash, and i)erhai)s to feed, 

 for the hist day or two, to about where she thinks her pup 

 shouhl be, but misses it, and linds instead a swarm of pups iu 

 Avhieh it has been incor[)orated, owin«>- to its ^reat fondness for 

 society. The mother, without at lirst enterin*'' into the crowd 

 of thousands, calls out, just as a sheep does for her lamb, lis- 

 tens, and out of all the din she — if not at first, at the end of a 

 few trials — reco<»nizes the voice of her oft'spring, and then ad- 

 vances, striking out right and left, and over the crowd, toward 

 the position from which it replies; but if the pup at this time 

 happens to be asleep she hears nothing from it, even though it 

 were close by, and iu this case the cow, after calling for a time 

 ^Yithout being answered, curls herself up and takes a nap, or 

 lazily basks, and is most likely more successful when she calls 

 again. 



The pups themselves do not know their mothers, but they 

 are so constituted that they incessantly^ cry out at short inter- 

 vals during the whole time they are awake, and in this way a 

 mother can pick, out of the monotonous blaating of thousands 

 of pups, her own, and she will not permit any other to suckle. 



Between the end of July and the 5th or Sth of xVugust the 

 rookeries are completely changed in appearance ; the systematic 

 and regular disposition of the families, or harems, over the 

 whole extent of ground has disappeared ; all order heretofore 

 existing seems to be broken up. The rutting-season over, those 

 bulls which held positions now leave, most of them very thin 

 in flesh and weak, and I think a large proportion of them do 

 not come out again on the land during the season ; and such as 

 do come, appear, not fat, but in good flesh, and in a new coat 

 of rich dark and gray-brown hair and fur, with gray and gray- 

 ish-ocher "wigs" or over-hair on the shoulders, forming a 

 strong contrast to the dull, rusty-brown and umber dress in 

 which they appeared during the summer, and which they had 

 begun to shed about the 15th of August, in common with the 

 cows and bachelor seals. After these bulls leave, at the close 

 of their season's work, those of them that do return to the laud 

 do not come back until the end of September, and do not haul 

 up on the rookery-grounds as a rule, preferring to herd together, 

 as do the young males, on the sand-beaches and other rocky 



