APPENDIX. 501 



Crowley, 1895: Page 479. 



The enumeration of breeding seals here given can have only the valne 

 of a personal estimate. No details are given as to how it was obtained. 

 Combining the totals for the two islands we have 99,930 breeding cows 

 and 5,552 breeding bulls. The more carefully and accurately worked 

 out census of Mr. F. W. True for the same season gave only 70,423 cows 

 and 4,402 bulls. It is likely that True's estimate falls below the facts, 

 because of the early date at which it was made as well as because he 

 failed to discover that not more than half the cows are present at once. 

 From our better understanding of the conditions of 1896 and 1897 we 

 may therefore infer that the actual number of breeding seals in 1895, 

 present at any one time, lay somewhere between these two estimates. 

 But both of these estimate were made under a misapprehension of the 

 real condition of rookery life, it being assumed that at the period known 

 as the " height of the season " all, or x)ractically all, the animals were 

 present. As we now know, even at the time of their greatest exi^ansion, 

 not more than half of the cows are on the rookeries at any one time, and, 

 therefore, in considering either of these estimates, they must at least 

 be doubled. 



