110 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



leave in the autnniu, while the general southerly winds waft to them 

 the odor and sounds of the village of St. Paul, not over 200 rods south 

 of them and above them, in plain sight. All this has no effect upon 

 the seals — they know that they are not disturbed — and the rookery, 

 the natives declare, has been slightly but steadily increasing. There- 

 fore, with regard to surveying and taking those boundaries assumed 

 by the breeding seals every year at that i^oint of high tide and great- 

 est expansion, which they assume between the 8th and 15th of Julj% 

 it is an entirely practicable and simple task. You can go everywhere 

 on the skirts of the rookeries almost within reaching distance, and 

 they will greet you with quiet, inoffensive notice, and permit close, 

 unbroken observation, when it is subdued and undemonstrative, pay- 

 ing very little attention to your approach. 



Yearly changes in the rookeries. — I believe the agents of the 

 Government there are going to notice, every year, little changes here 

 and there in the area and distribution of the rookeries. For instance, 

 one of these breeding grounds will not be quite as large this year as 

 it was last, while another one, opposite, will be found somewhat larger 

 and exi^anded over the record Avhich it made last seavson. In 1874 it 

 was my pleasure and my profit to retra verse all these rookeries of St. 

 George and St. Paul, with mj^ field notes of 1872 in my hand, making 

 careful comparisons of their relative size as recorded then and now. 

 To show this peculiarity of enlarging a little here and diminishing a 

 little there, so characteristic of the breeding grounds, I reproduce the 

 following memoranda of 1874: 



Northeast Point, July 18, 1874. 



Contrast on St. Paul between 1872 and 1874. — Quite a strip of ground near 

 Webster's house has been deserted this season; but a small expansion is observed 

 on Hutcbinsons Hill. The rest of the ground is as mapped in 1873, with no note- 

 worthy increase in any direction. The condition of the animals and their young, 

 excellent; small irregularities in the massing of the families, due to the heavy rain 

 this morning; sea lions about the same: none, however, on the west shox*e of the 

 point. 



The aggregate of life on this great rooi^ery is, therefore, about the same as in 

 1873: the "holluschickie." or killable seals, hauling as well and as numerously as 

 before. The proportions of the different ages among them of 3, 3, and 4 year olds, 

 pretty well represented. 



Pol A VINA, Juhj IS, I874. 

 Stands as it did in 1872; breeding and hauling grounds in excellent condition; 

 the latter, on Polavina, are changing from the uplands down upon Polaviiia sand 

 beach, trending for 3 miles toward Northeast Point. The numbers of the ■• holJus- 

 chickie"" on this ground of Polavina, where they have not been disturbed for 

 some 5 years, to mention, in the way of taking, do not seem to be any greater than 

 they are on the hauling grounds adjacent to Northeast Point and the village, from 

 which they are driven almost every day during the season of killing. I notice 

 also this remarkable characteristic of the "holluschickie"' — no matter how cleanly 

 the natives may drive the seals off of a given piece of hauling groimd this morning, 

 if tlie weatlier is favorable, to-morrow will see it covered again just as thickly; 

 and thus they drive in this manner from Zoltoi sands almost every day during the 

 killing season, generally finding on the succeeding morning more, or as many, 

 seals as they drove off the previoiTS dawn. This seems to indicate that the "hollus- 

 chickie " recognize no particular point as favored over another at the island when 

 they land, which is evidently in obedience to a general desire of coming ashore at 

 such a suitable place as promises no crowding and no fighting. 



LUKANNON AND KeTAVIE, Jjihj 19, 1874. 



Not materially changed in any respect from its condition at this time in 1873. 



GORBOTCH, July 10, 1874. 

 Just the same. Condition excellent. 



