ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 141 



hiCJi lions at 1,400 to 1,500 pounds; an average weight, however, might 

 safely be recorded as touching 1,200 pounds.^ 



Organization of sea-lion rookeries.— The sea-lion rookery will 

 be found to consist of about ten to fifteen females to every male. 

 The females, in landing, seem to be influenced by no preference for 

 one male above another, but are actuated solely to come ashore at a 

 suitable place, where, soon after landing, they are to bring forth their 

 young. The cow seems at all times to have the utmost freedom in m ov- 

 ing from place to place, and also often to start vvith its young — which is 

 noteworthy, inasmuch as I never saw it among the fur seals — picking 

 the pup up by the nape and carrying it to the water to play Avith it 

 for short spells in the surf wash. The pup sea lions are by no means 

 helpless when they are born. When they first come into the world 

 their eyes are i^romptl}^ opened wide and clear; they stand up quite 

 free and strong on their odd flipper feet, and commence at once, in 

 their frequent intervals of wakefulness, to crawl over bowlders and 

 the sand, to paddle in the surf, and to roar huskily and shrilly at their 

 parents. 



({ROWTH op young SEA LIONS. — They are fed upon the richest of 

 rich jiulk at Irregular and somewhat lengthy periods. Regaled in this 

 manner the young sea lion gi-ows with surprising rapidity, so much so 

 that its weight of 9 or 12 pounds at birth is increased to 75 or 90 in 

 less than four months thereafter. By this time, also, it has shed its 

 natal coat and teeth, it has grown a strong mustache, and has become 

 a facile swimmer and expert fisherman, though at first it was one of 

 the most clumsy, yet never so helpless as the fur seal. The liquid, 

 pearly blue eye of the little fellow is soon changed into the sinister 

 expression of adolescence when it has rounded its second year. It 

 appears to grow up unnoticed by its grim-looking parents, though the 

 maternal attention is more evident, but still scant, indeed, when con- 

 trasted with the love evinced by cat or dog for its offspring. 



V'isiTiNG THE Tolstoi rookery. — At the east end of St. George 

 Island, just to the. south wai'd of Tolstoi JMees, is one of the finest sea- 

 lion rookeries on the islands or perhaps in the world. It lies at the 

 base of a frowning wall of precipitous cliffs, and the mural walls sheer 

 aloft 400 and 500 feet as they overhang the sea. Here beneath, on a 

 rockj^ stretch of beach some 30 or 40 feet wide at high-Avater mark, 

 stowed thicklj^ side by side, end to end, and crosswise for a distance 

 of half a mile up and down the coast, are four or five thousand sea 



' Often when the fur seal and sea-lion bnlls haul up in the bei^inning of the sea- 

 son, exiimples among tliem which are inordinately fat will be seen. Their extra 

 avoirdupois renders thein very conspicuous, even among large gatherings of their 

 kind. They seem to exhit)it a sense of self-oppression tlien quite as marked as 

 is that subsequent air of depression worn when later tho}^ have starved out this 

 load of surplus blubber and are shambling back to the sea for recuperation and 

 rest. I thought over and devised many plans to kill and v/eigh entire one of these 

 unusually lieavy bulls, but they all failed, because I did not have the time to spare 

 from so many other observations ]iressing and necessary to be made at that season 

 if made at all during the year. The united effort of five or six men, aided l)y the 

 mule and cart at St. Paul, would solve the problem, doubtless, almost any day 

 they set about it early in May. Some of these superfleshy fur-seal males look as 

 though they were from GOO to 700 pounds weight, while I have seen several sea- 

 lion bulls that actually appeared equal to turning the scales at 1,500 poiinds avoir- 

 dupois. Those fur seals which I did weigh in July, 1873, and September, 1S73, 

 were not at all extra fleshy, and consequently do not give a fair return for these 

 examples above referred to. 



