THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 49 



shoved high up on to all the rookery-margins, forming an icy wall completely around the island, looming up 20 to 

 30 leet above the surf; they farther state that this wall did not melt or in any way disappear until the middle or 

 end of August, 1S36. 



They affirm that for this reason the fur-seals, when they attempted to land, according to their habit and their 

 necessity, during June and July, were unable to do so in any considerable numbers. The females were compelled 

 to bring forth their young in the water and at the wet, storm-beaten surf-margins, which caused multitudes of the 

 mothers and all of the young to perish. In short, the result was a virtual annihilation of the breeding-seals. Hence, 

 at the following season, only a spectral, a shadowy imitation of past times could be observed upon the seal-grounds 

 of St. Paul and St. George. 



On the Lagoon rookery, now opposite the village of St. Paul, there were then only two males, with a 

 number of cows. At Nah Speel, close by and right under the village, there were then only some 2,000; this the 

 natives know because they counted them. Ou Zapadnie there were about 1,000 cows, bulls, and pups ; at Southwest 

 point there were none. Two small rookeries were then on the north shore of St. Paul, near a place called 

 "Maroonitch"; and there were seven small rookeries running round Northeast point, but on all of these there were 

 only 1,500 males, females, and young; and this number includes the "holluschickie", which, in those days, lay in 

 among the breeding-seals, there being so few old males that they were gladly permitted to do so. On Polavina 

 there were then about 500 cows, bulls, pups, and "holluschickie"; on Lukannou and Keetavie about 300; but on 

 Keetavie there were only ten bulls and so few young males lying in altogether, that these old natives, as they told 

 me, took no note of them on the rookeries just cited. On the Beef, in Gorbotch, were about 1,000 only; in this 

 number last mentioned some 800 "holluschickie" may be included, which lay in with the breeding-seals. There 

 were only twenty old bulls on Gorbotch, and about ten old males on the Beef. The village was placed on its present 

 site ten years prior to this period of 1835-'36. 



Such, briefly and succinctly, is the sum and the substance of all information which I could gather prior to 

 1835-36; and while I do not entirely credit these statements, yet the earnest, straightforward agreement of the 

 natives has impressed me so that I narrate it here. It certainly seems as though this enumeration of the old 

 Aleuts was painfully short. 



Then, again, with regard to the probable truth of the foregoing statement of the natives, perhaps I should call 

 attention to the fact that the entire sum of seal-life in 1836, as given by them, is just 4,100, of all classes, distributed 

 as I have indicated above. Now, on turning to Bishop Veniaminov, by whom was published the only 

 statement of any kind in regard to the killing on these islands from 1817 to 1837, the year when he finished his 

 work,* I find that he makes a record of slaughter of seals in the year 1836, of 4,052, which were killed and 

 taken for their skins ; but if the natives' statements are right, then only 50 seals were left on the island for 1837, in 

 which year, however, 4,220 were again killed, according to the bishop's table, according to which there was also a 

 steady increase in the size of this return from that date along up to 1850, when the Bussians governed their catch 

 by the market alone, always having more seals than they knew what to do with. 



Again, in this connection, the natives say that until 1847, the practice on these islands was to kill indiscriminately 

 both females and males for skins ; but after this year, 1847, the strict respect now paid to the breeding-seals, 

 and exemption of all females, was enforced for the first time, and has continued up to date. 



Thus it will be seen that there is, frankly stated, nothing to guide to a fair or even an approximate estimate as to 

 the numbers of the fur-seals on these two islands, prior to my labor. 



Manneu of computing the number of seals. — After a careful study of the subject, during three entire 

 consecutive seasons, and a confirmatory review of it in 1876, I feel confident that the following figures and surveys 

 will, upon their own face, speak authoritatively as to their truthful character. 



At the close of my investigation, during the first season of my labor on the ground, in 1872, the fact became 

 evident that the breeding-seals obeyed implicitly an imperative and instinctive natural law of distribution ; a law 

 recognized by each and every seal upon the rookeries, prompted by a fine consciousness of necessity to its own 

 well-being. The breeding-grounds occupied by them were, therefore, invariably covered by the seals in exact 

 ratio, greater or less, as the area upon which they rested was larger or smaller. They always covered the ground 

 evenly, never crowding in at one place here, to scatter out there. The seals lie just as thickly together, where the 

 rookery is boundless in its eligible area to their rear and unoccupied by them, as they do in the little strips which 

 are abruptly cut off and narrowed by rocky walls behind. For instance, on a rod of ground, under the face of 

 bluffs M-hich hemmed it in to the land from the sea, there are just as many seals, no more and no less, as will be 

 found on any other rod of rookery-ground throughout the whole list, great and small ; always exactly so many seals, 

 under any and all circumstances, to a given area of breeding-ground. There are just as many cows, bulls, and 

 pups on a square rod at Nah Speel, near the village, where, in 1874, all told, there were only seven or eight thousand, 

 as there are on any square rod at Northeast point, where a million of them congregate. 



This fact being determined, it is evident that, just in proportion as the breeding-grounds of the fur-seal on 

 these islands expand or contract in area from their present dimensions, the seals will increase or diminish in 

 number. 



* Zapieskie of Ooiialaskki'iiskalio Otdayla, Si. Petersburg, 1642. 



