ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 145 



the natives occasionally shoot them long after the fur seals have 

 entirely disappeared. 



Great range of sea lions: It is not restricted to the seal 

 ISLANDS. — Again, it does not confine its landing to the Pribilof Islands 

 alone, as the fnr seal unquestionably does, with reference to such 

 terrestrial location in our own country. On the contrary, it is a fre- 

 quent visitor to almost all of the Aleutian Islands, and ranges, as I 

 have said before, over the mainland coast of Alaska, south of Bristol 

 Bay, and about the Siberian shores to the westward, throughout the 

 Kuriles and the Japanese northern waters.^ 



Differences between Zalophus and Eumetopias. — When I first 

 returned, in 1873, from the seal islands, those authors whose conclu- 

 sions were accepted prior to my studies there had agreed in declaring 

 that the sea lion, so common off the port of San Francisco, was the 

 same animal also common in Alaska, and the Pribilof Islands in 

 especial; but my drawings from life, and studies, quickly pointed out 

 the error, for it was seen that the creature most familiar to the Cali- 

 fornians was an entirel}^ different animal from my subject of studj'' 

 on the seal islands. In other words, while scattered examples of the 

 Eumetopias were, and are, unquestionably about and off the harbor 

 of San Francisco, yet nine-tenths of the sea lions there observed were 

 a different animal — they were the Zalophus calif ornianus. This 

 Zalophus is not much more than half the size of Eumetopias, rela- 

 tively; it has the large, round, soft eye of the fur seal, and the more 

 attenuated Newfoundland-dog-like muzzle; and it never roars, but 

 breaks out incessantly with a honl', honk, honking bark, or howl. 



No example of Zalophus has ever been observed in the waters of 

 Bering Sea, nor do I believe that it goes northward of Cape Flattery. 



' The winter of 1873-73, which I passed on the Pribilof Islands, was so rigorous 

 that the shores were ice bound and the sea covered with floes from January until 

 the 2yth of May; hence I did not have an opportunity of seeing tor myself 

 whether the sea lion remains about its breeding grounds there throughout that 

 period. The natives say that a few of them, when the sea is open, are always to 

 be foimd, at any day during the winter and early spring, hauled out at Northeast 

 Point, on Otter Island, and around St. George. They are, in my opinion, correct; 

 and being in such small numbers the "seevitchie'" undoubtedly find enough 

 subsistence in local ciustacea, pisces, and other food. The natives also further 

 stated that none of the sea lions which we observe on the islands diiring the 

 breeding season leave the waters of Bering Sea from the date of their birth to the 

 time of their death. I am also inclined to agree with this proposition, as a general 

 rule, though it would be strange if Pribilof sea lions did not occasionally slip into 

 the North Pacific, through and below the Aleutian chain, a short distance, even 

 to traveling as far to the eastward as Cooks Inlet. Eumetopias stelleri is well 

 known to breed at many places between Attn and Kadiak islands. I did not see 

 it at St. Matthew, however, and I do not think it has ever bred there, although 

 this island is only 200 miles away to the northward of the seal islaiids— too many 

 polar bears. Whalers speak of having shot it in the ice packs in a much higher 

 latitude, nevertheless, than that of St. Matthew. I can find no record of its 

 breeding anywhere on the islands or mainland coast of Alaska north of the fifty- 

 seventh parallel or south of the fifty -third parallel of north latitude. It is common 

 on the coast of Kamchatka, the Kurile Islands, and the Commander group, in 

 Russian waters. 



There are vague and ill-digested rumors of finding Eumetopias on the shores of 

 Prince of Wales and Queen Charlotte islands in breeding rookeries. I doubt it. 

 If it were so, it would be authoritatively known by this time. We do find it in 

 small numbers on the Farralone rocks, off the entrance to the harbor of San 

 Francisco, where it breeds in company with, though sexually apart from, an 

 overwhelming majority of Zalophus; and it is creditably reported as breeding 

 again to 'the southward, on the Santa Barbara, Guadalonpe, and other islands of 

 soiithern and Lower California, consorting there, as on the Farralones, with an 

 infinitely larger number of the lesser-bodied Zalophus. 



H. Doc. 92, pt. 3 10 



