294 cause. 



allow the large ones to escape; but in 1888 and 1889 there was such a 

 marked scarcity of breeding males upon Hie rookeries that I gave strict 

 orders to spare all live-year-old bulls and confine the killing to smaller 

 animals. 



1 have never known or heard tell of a time when there was not bulls 



enough and to spare on the breeding rookeries. I 



Anton Melovcdoff, p. 112. never saw a cow of 3 years old or over in August 



without a pup by her side. The only cows on a 



breeding rookery without pups are the virgin cows who have come 



there for the first time. I never went onto a rookery in the breeding 



season when I could not have counted plenty of idle vigorous bulls 



who had no cows. 



Talk of epidemics among seals and of impotent bulls on the rook- 

 eries, but those who have spent a- lifetime on the seal islands, and whose 

 business and duty it has been to guard and observe them, have no knowl- 

 edge of the existence of either. An important bull dare not attempt to 

 go on a rookery, even had he a desire to do so. Excepting the ex- 

 tremely old and feeble, I have never seen a bull that was impotent. 



Nor is there any shadow of fact for the idle statement made from time 

 „. „, 7 ., ,, a to time about a dearth of bulls on the rookeries 



Simeon Miiondov, p. lib. ,. . .in 



or ol impotent bulls. 

 1 have talked to the old men of our people, men who can remember 

 back" over fifty years, and not one of them knows of a time when there 

 was not plenty of bulls, and more than enough on the breeding rook- 

 eries, and no one here ever heard of an impotent bull. * * * It 

 has been said that cows are barren sometimes because of the dearth 

 of bulls, but such is not the ease at all, for the only cows on the breed- 

 ing rookeries in July or August without pups are the 1 wo-year-olds (vir- 

 gins), which have come on the rookeries for the first time. 



Despite the lowering of the standard weight of skins, care was taken 



annually on St. George that the residue of avail- 



T. F.Morgan, p. 63. able male breeders was sufficient for the needs of 



the rookeries, and instructions to that effect were 



given to the assistants by the superintendent of the Alaska Commercial 



Company. In this we were aided by the inaccessible character of some 



of the hauling grounds. 



During these years there were always a sufficiency of male seals for 



breeding purposes, and in every year I saw great 



I. H. Moulton,p.71. numbers of idle, vigorous bulls about and back of 



the breeding grounds, which were unable to obtain 



females. 



During my observations in 1890, I was led to believe that the de- 

 crease was partly due to the lack of bulls on the 

 Jos. Murray, p. 1 '4. breeding rookeries, and 1 so reported to Agent 

 Gofif; but after thoroughly investigating the sub- 

 ject the next year by daily visits to the breeding grounds of the sev- 

 eral rookeries, where 1 saw nearly every cow with a pup by her side, 

 and hundreds of vigorous bulls without any cows, I came to the con- 

 clusion that there is no truth in the theory, and that it was the cows 

 that were scarce and steadily decreasing, llad I had a doubt it would 



