29 Part II. 



DETAILED OBSERVATIONS ON THE FACTS AND CONDITIONS OF 



SEAL LIFE. 



I.— Natural History and Environment of the Fur-seal of 

 TUE North Pacific. 



(A.) — Migrations and Range of the Fur- seal of tlie North Pacific. 



(i.) — Eastern Side of the North Pacific. 



171. Respecting: the migrations and range of the fur-seal in the North 

 Pacific, while numerous scattered references are to be found, these are 

 for the most part fragmentary and vague, and no connected account of 

 the migrations or migration routes, based upon facts, have heretofore 

 been given. The additional information gained in the course of special 

 inquiries on this subject now, however, not only enables the migrations 

 of the fur-seal to be clearly followed, but appears definitively to set at 

 rest the question which has been consistently asked by sealers from the 

 earliest times of the Russian occupation as to the winter habitat of the 

 fur-seal. 



172. Written inquiries on this and other points were addressed to the 

 district Indian agents along the coast of British Columbia, and the 

 traders, Aleuts, Indians, and others interested or engaged in seal- 

 hunting, or resident on the West Coast, have been conversed with and 

 questioned. (See Appendix C.) 



173. The notes thus obtained are summarized below, and it may be 

 stated that, with few and unimportant exceptions, such as may be 

 explained by variations from year to year in time and direction of 

 migration, these are concordant and homogeneous in their meaning. 



174. Those who have been upon the Pribyloft' Islands in the autumn 

 and winter state that the seals leave these islands and their vicinity for 

 the south chiefly between the middle of October and the early jjart of 

 December, though a few may depart before the first date, while in 

 exceptionally mild seasons stragglers have been known to remain after 

 the latter month. The mature seals, especially the females, are the first 

 to leave, the pups (now on account of their change of coat ranking as 

 " grey pups") going later, and almost all about the middle of November, 

 when they are driven off by the weather. The "holluschickie" (half- 

 grown males or "bachelors") and a few old bulls are the last to leave. 



175. From October to December, but chiefly in November, the seals 

 are seen in varying abundance by the Aleuts of the eastern part of the 

 Aleutian Islands, and are hunted by these people. 



61 



