THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 67 



Sites of abandoned rookeries. — "With reference to the amount of ground covered by the seals, when 

 first discovered by the Russians, 1 have examine*] every foot of the shore line of both islands where the bones, and 

 polished rocks, etc., might be lying on any deserted areas. Since then, after carefully surveying the new ground now 

 occupied by the seals, and comparing this area with that which they have deserted, 1 feel justified in stating that 

 for the last twelve or lifteeu years, at least, the fur-seals on these' islands have not diminished, nor have they 

 increased as a body to any noteworthy degree; and throughout this time the breeding grounds have not been 

 disturbed except at that brief but tumultuous interregnum during 18G8; and they have been living since in a 

 perfectly quiet and natural condition. 



Can the number be increased '. — What can be done to promote their increase .' We cannot cause a greater 

 number of females to be born every year than are born now ; we do not touch or disturb these females as they grow 

 up and live ; and we never will, if the law and present management is continued. We save double — we save 

 more than enough males to serve; nothing more can be done by human agency ; it is beyond our power to protect 

 them from their deadly marine enemies as they wander into the boundless ocean searching for food. 



In view, therefore, of all these facts, I have no hesitation in saying, quite confidently, that under the present 

 rules and regulations governing the sealing interests on these islands, the increase or diminution of the seal-life 

 thereon will amount to nothing in the future ; that the seals will exist, as they do exist, in all time to come at about 

 the same number and condition recorded in this monograph. To test this theory of mine, I here, in the record of 

 my surveys of the rookeries, have put stakes down which will answer, upon those breeding-grounds, as a correct 

 guide as to their present, as well as to their future, condition, from year to year. 



Surveying the condition op THE EOOKERiES. — During the first week of inspection of some of those earliest 

 arrivals, the "seecatchie", which I have described, will frequently take to the water when approached; but 

 these runaways quickly return. By the end of May, however, the same seals will hardly move to the right or left 

 when you attempt to pass through them. Then, two weeks before the females begin to come in, and quickly 

 after their arrival, the organization of the fur-seal rookery is rendered entirely indifferent to man's presence on 

 visits of quiet inspection, or to anything else, save their own kind, and so continues during the rest of the season. 



Indifference of fur-seals to carrion smells, blood, etc. — I have called attention to the singular 

 fact, that the breeding-seals upon the rookeries and hauling grounds are not affected by the smell of blood or carrion 

 arising from the killing-fields, or the stench of blubber fires which burn in the native villages. This trait is 

 conclusively illustrated by the attitude of those two rookeries near the village of St. Paul; for the breeding-ground 

 on this spit, at the head of the lagoon, is not more than forty yards from the great killing-grounds to the eastward; 

 being separated from those spots of slaughter, and the seventy or eighty thousand rotting carcasses thereon, by a 

 slough not more than ten yards wide. These seals can smell the blood and carcasses, upon this field, from the time, 

 they land in the spring until they leave in the autumn ; while the general southerly winds waft to them the odor 

 and sounds of the village of St. Paul, not over 200 rods south of them, and above them, in plain sight. All this 

 has no effect upon the seals — they know that they are not disturbed — and the rookery, the natives declare, has been 

 slightly but steadily increasing. Therefore, with regard to surveying and taking those boundaries assumed by the 

 breeding-seals every year, at that point of high tide, and greatest expansion, which they assume between the Sth 

 and 15th of July, it is an entirely practicable and simple task. You can go everywhere on the skirts of the rookei ies 

 almost within reaching distance, and they will greet you with quiet, inoffensive notice, and permit close, unbroken 

 observation, when it is subdued and undemonstrative, paying very little attention to your approach. 



Yearly changes in the rookeries. — I believe the agents of the government there, are going to notice, 

 every year, little changes here and there in the area and distribution of the rookeries; for instance, one of these 

 breeding-grounds will not be quite as large this year as it was last, while another one, opposite, will be found 

 somewhat larger and expanded over the record which it made last season. In 1874, it was my pleasure and my 

 profit to re traverse all these rookeries of St. George and St. Paul, with my field notes of 1872 in my hand, making 

 careful comparisons of their relative size as recorded then, and now. To show this peculiarity of enlarging a little 

 here, and diminishing a little there, so characteristic of the breeding-grounds, I reproduce the following memoranda 

 of 1874 : 



Northeast Point, July 18, 1874. 



Contrast on St. Paul mi;t\vei:n 1-72 am> I-74. — (^uife a strip of ground near Webster's house has been deserted this seasou; but 

 a small expansion is observed on Hutchinson's hill. The rest of the ground is as mapped in 1872, with no noteworthy increase iu any 

 direction. The condition of the animals and their young, excellent ; small irregularities in the massing of the families, due to the heavy 

 rain this morning ; sea-lions about the same : none, however, on the west shore of the point. 



The aggregate of life on this great rookery is, therefore, about, the same as in 1872 ; the " holluschiekic ", or billable seals, hauling 

 as well and as numerously as before. The proportions of the different ages among them of two. three, and four-\ car-olds, pretty well 

 represented. 



Polavina, July 18, 1874. 



Stands as it did in 1872; breeding- and hauling-gronnds in excellent condition: the latter, on Polaviua, are changing from the 

 uplands down npon Polavina sand beach, trending for three miles toward northeast point. The numbers of the "holluBchickie" on this 

 ground of Polavina, where they have not been disturbed for some five years, to mention, in the way of tailing, do not seem to be anj 

 greater than they are on the hauling-groiruds adjacent to Northeast point and the village, from which they are driven almost every day 



