ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 109 



those now occupied, there were no more seals when first seen here by 

 human eyes in 1786 and 1787 than there are now, in 1881, as far as all 

 evidence goes. 



Sites of abandoned rookeries. — With reference to the amount 

 of ground covered b}^ the seals, when first discovered by the Russians, 

 I have examined every foot of the shore line of both islands where the 

 bones and polished rocks, etc. , might be lying on any deserted areas. 

 Since then, after carefully surveying the new ground now occupied 

 by the seals, and comparing this area with that which they have 

 deserted, I feel justified in stating that for the last twelve or fifteen 

 years, at least, the fur seals on these islands have not diminished, nor 

 have they increased as a body to any noteworthy degree ; and through- 

 out this time the breeding grounds have not been disturbed except at 

 that brief but tumultuous interregnum during 1868; and th'ey have 

 been living since in a perfectly quiet and natural condition. 



Can the number be increased ? — What can be done to promote 

 their increase? We can not cause a greater number of females to be 

 born every jeav than are born now; we do not touch or disturb these 

 females as they grow uj) and live; and we never will, if the law and 

 present management is continued. We save double — we save more 

 than enough males to serve; nothing more can be done by human 

 agency; it is beyond our power to protect them from their deadly 

 marine enemies as they wander into the boundless ocean searching 

 for food. 



In view, therefore, of all these facts, I have no hesitation in saying, 

 quite confidently, that under the present rules and regulations gov- 

 erning the sealing interests on these islands, the increase or diminu- 

 tion of the seal life thereon will amount to nothing in the future; that 

 the seals will exist, as they do exist, in all time to come at about the 

 same number and condition recorded in this monograj)h. To test this 

 theory of mine, I here, in the record of my survej^s of the rookeries, 

 have ]5ut stakes down which will answer, upon those breeding grounds, 

 as a correct guide as to their present, as well as to their future, con- 

 dition from year to year. 



Surveying the condition op the rookeries. — During the first 

 week of inspection of some of those earliest arrivals, the " see-catchie," 

 which I have described, will frequently take to the water 'when 

 approached; but these runaway's quickly return. By the end of May, 

 however, the same seals will hardly move to the right or left when 

 you attempt to pass through them. Then, two weeks before the 

 females begin to come in, and quicklj^ after their arrival, the organi- 

 zation of the fur-seal rookery is rendered entirely indifferent to man's 

 presence on visits of quiet inspection, or to anything else, save their 

 own kind, and so continues during the rest of the season. 



Indifference of fur seals to carrion smells, blood, etc. — I 

 have called attention to the singular fact that the breeding seals upon 

 the rookeries and hauling grounds are not affected by the smell of 

 blood or carrion arising from the killing fields, or the stench of blub- 

 ber fires which burn in the native villages. This trait is conclusively 

 illustrated by the attitude of those two rookeries near the village of 

 St. Paul ; for the breeding ground on this spit, at the head of the 

 lagoon, is not more than 40 yards from the great killing grounds to the 

 eastward, being separated from those spots of slaughter and the sev- 

 enty or eighty thousand rotting carcasses thereon by a slough not 

 more than 10 yards wide. These seals- can smell the blood and car- 

 casses upon this field from the time they land in the spring until they 



