INCREASE. 259 



was fully 25 per cent. One fact alone proved conclusively that there 

 had been a considerable increase, for in 1871 I noticed passages left by 

 the old bulls through the breeding grounds for the bachelors to pass 

 to and from the hauling grounds located back of the breeding grounds. 

 In subsequent years these passages were entirely blocked up by the 

 breeders. There was always during these six years an excess of adult, 

 vigorous bulls, for breeding purposes, and large numbers of these 

 hauled up back of and about the breeding grounds awaiting an oppor- 

 tunity to take the place of some wounded or aged bull unable longer 

 to maintain a harem. 



Each season while I was located on the islands I made a careful ex- 

 amination of the breeding grounds on St. George 

 Island, noting particularly the areas covered by Samuel Falconer, p. 167. 

 them; and I now recollect the condition of said. 



rookeries and the approximate area which each of them covered in the 

 year 1874. I have care fully examined the lines drawn by Thomas F. 

 Morgan on exhibits signed by him and marked exhibits H, I, J, and 

 K; that the lines in red on said exhibits practically represent the areas 

 so covered in 1874; but I think that in some instances, hereafter stated, 

 Mr. Morgan has been a little too conservative in his estimates. 



On Starry Arteal Rookery (Exibit H) the line should be extended 

 along the shore to the eastern limit of the pond, shown on said exhibit, 

 and should extend nearly as far again up the hillside. 



On North Rookery (Exhibit J) the line does not, in my judgment, 

 extend as far back from the shore as it should, as there had been a 

 great increase since 1871 on this particular rookery. 



1 would further state that there was a perceptible increase in all 

 these areas from 1871 to 1874. 



I would also state that the spaces indicated as areas over which seals 

 have at various times hauled, on said exhibits, by J. Stanley Brown 

 (as I am informed and believe), are, to the best of my knowledge and 

 belief, correctly designated. 



At the time of my employment at the island, everything about the 

 seal rookeries and sealing industry appeared to 

 be in a highly prosperous condition. There was B. V. Fletcher, p. 105. 

 no lack of seals. The rookeries were said by all 

 the natives and residents to be as large and full as they had ever been, 

 and the lessees got their full number of skins allowed by law within 

 the usual time, all of good marketable sizes, from such sized animals 

 as the employes were told to kill, and had alarge surplus left each 

 year for breeders. 



From the time I settled here in 1869 until 1882 or 1883, there was no 

 trouble at all in taking 85,000 seals on St. Paul 

 Island between June 1 and July 30, and we often John Fratis, p. 107. 

 got that number by July 20. 



There has been no change in the manner of conducting the business 

 ashore, but there has been added the open-sea 

 hunting industry in the waters surrounding the W. S. Hereford, p. 33. 

 rookeries, and which industry, as is well known, 



has rapidity increased since 1884, until now it has assumed grand pro- 

 portions. 



