ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 61 



Pacific in the winter, along by the first of November, they gather in 

 this manner, sleeping and frolicking by tens of thousands, bunched 

 together at various places all over the islands contiguous to the breed- 

 ing grounds and right on them. A mother comes up from the sea, 

 whither she has been to wash, and perhaps to feed, for the last day or 

 two, feeling her way along to about where she thinks her pup should 

 be — at least where she left it last — but perhaps she misses it, and finds 

 instead a swarm of i^ups in which it has been incorporated, owing to 

 its great fondness for society. The mother, without first entering into 

 the crowd of thousands, calls out just as a sheep does for a lamb, and 

 out of all the din she — if not at first, at the end of a few trials — recog- 

 nizes the voice of her ofl:"spring, and then advances, striking out right 

 and left, toward the position from which it replies. But if the pup 

 happens at this time to be asleep, it gives, of course, no response, even 

 though it were close by. In the event of this silence the cow, after 

 calling for a time without being answered, curls herself up and takes 

 a nap, or lazily basks, to be usually more successful, or wholly so, 

 when she calls again. 



The pups themselves do not know their own mothers — a fact which 

 I ascertained b}^ careful observation — but they are so constituted that 

 they incessantly cry oat at short intervals during the whole time they 

 are awake, and in this way the mother can pick out, from the monoto- 

 nous bleating of thousands of pups, her own, and she will not permit 

 any other to suckle it; but the " kotickie" themselves attempt to nose 

 around every seal mother that comes in contact with them. (See note, 

 .39,1.) 



Disorganization of the rookeries. — Between the end of July 

 and the 5th or 8th of August of every year the rookeries are com- 

 pletely changed in appearance; the systematic and regular disposi- 

 tion of the families or harems over the whole extent of breeding 

 ground has disappeared; all that clockwork order which has here- 

 tofore existed seems to be broken up. The breeding season over, 

 those bulls which have held their positions since the 1st of May 

 leave, most of them thin in flesh and weak, and of their number a 

 very large ]jroportion do not come out again on land during the sea- 

 son; but such as are seen at the end of October and November are in 

 good flesh. They have a new coat of rich, dark, graj^-brown hair and 

 fui", with gray or grayish ocher "wigs" of longer hair over the 

 shoulders, forming a fresh, strong contrast to the dull, rusty, broAvn 

 and umber dress in which they appeared to us during the summer, 

 and which they had begun to shed about the 1st of August, in com- 

 mon with the females and "holluschickie." After these males leave, 

 at the close of their season's work and of the rutting for the year, 

 those of them that happen to return to the land in any event do not 

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

 rookerj^ grounds again. As a rule they prefer to herd together, like 

 the younger males, upon the sand beaches and rocky points close to 

 the water. 



The cows and pups, together with those bulls which we have noticed 

 in waiting in the rear of the rookeries, and which have been in retire- 

 ment throughout the whole of the breeding season, now take posses- 

 sion, in a very disorderly manner, of the rookeries. There come, also, 

 a large number of young, three, four, and five year-old males, which 

 have been prevented by the menacing threats of the older, stronger 

 bulls from landing among the females during the rutting season. 



Before the middle of August three-fourths, at least, of the cows at 

 this date are off in the water, only coming ashore at irregular inter- 



