172 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



year the hair upon the neck and shoulders of the males begins to grow 

 coarser and longer, forming a sort of mane, which increases in length 

 and stiffness until the animal attains its full growth, during tlie lapse 

 of its eighth or ninth year of life. The females are not found upon 

 the hauling grounds with the males after they are 2 yeaj'S old, hence 

 it seems prol^able that they go from the rookery in their third and 

 bear a pup in their fourth year. When both are full grown the sexes 

 differ most widely in appearance. The male, weighing from four to 

 five hundred pounds, is about three times as large as the female, has 

 a mane, and is either black or dark brown in color. The tinting of 

 the female is a soft, rich brown on the back and sides, changing almost 

 to orange upon the belly, and there is no mane. The fur of the cows 

 is rather thicker and finer than that of the yearling seals, though the 

 skins of young males from 3 to G years old are not very much inferior. 



Importance of knowing the number of seals. — It is of very 

 great significance in this connection to know how many seals come 

 annually to the islands, or rather to understand how many may be 

 killed for their skins annually, without causing less to come hereafter 

 than do at the present time. To determine how many there are with 

 accuracy is a task almost on a par with that of numbering the stars. 

 The singular motion of the animals when on shore, tlie great variety 

 in size, color, and position, the extent of surface over which they are 

 spread, and the fact that it can not be determined exactly what pro- 

 portion of them, of their several classes, are on shore at any given 

 time — all these desiderata for comprehension make it simi^ly impos- 

 sible to get more than an approximation of tlieir numbers. They have 

 been variously estimated at from one to fifteen millions. 



Methods of enumeration of the fur seal. — I think the most 

 accurate enumeration yet made is that by Mr. II. W. Elliott, special 

 agent of the Treasury Department, in 1872. This calculation is based 

 upon the hypothesis that the breeding seals are governed in hauling 

 by a common and invariable law of distribution, which is that the 

 area of the rookery ground is directly proportional to the number of 

 seals occupying it. He estimates that there is one seal to every 2 

 square feet of rookery surface. Hence the problem is reduced to the 

 simple operation of obtaining half the sum of tlie su]3erficial area of 

 all the rookeries in square feet. He surveyed these breeding grounds 

 of both islands in 1S72 and 1873, when at their greatest limit of expan- 

 sion, and obtained the following results: Upon St. Paul Island there 

 were 6,000,000 feet of ground occupied by 3,030,000 breeding seals and 

 their young. On St. George Island he announced 326,840 square feet 

 of superficial rookery area occupied by 163,420 breeding seals and their 

 young; a total for both islands of 3,193,420 breeding seals and their 

 young. The number of nonbreeding seals can not be determined in 

 the foregoing manner, as they haul most irregularly, but it seems to 

 me probable that they are nearly as numerous as the other class is. 

 If so, it would give not far from 6,000,000 as the stated number of 

 seals of all kinds which visited the Pribilof Islands during the season 

 of 1872. 



General accuracy of these results. — It is likely that these 

 figures are not far from the truth, but I do not think it necessary 

 myself to take into consideration the actual number of seals in order 

 to decide the question of how many can be taken each year without 

 injury to the fishery. The law that the size of the rookeries varies 

 directly as the number of seals increases or diminishes seems to me, 

 after close and repeated observation, to be correct. All the rook- 

 eries, whether large or small, are uniform in appearance, alike com- 



