86 REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 



adult male to twout/fivc I'ciiiales, was far too small. Lieutenant May- 

 iiard, again, says: "The bulls are polygamous, having from live to 

 twenty cows each; so that tlie number of tliem upon the rookeries is 

 not more than one-tenth of that of the cows.* 



294. It may thus be very safely assumed that the ratio of virile males 

 of full age, cannot be allowed to exceed the projiortion of (mo to twenty, 

 without serious danger of harm to the breeding rookeries, and the 

 certainty of grave irregularities on them; and it is necessary to bear 

 this fact in mind in endeavouring to appreciate the meaning of the 

 present condition of the rookeries of the Pribyloff Islands, where, as 

 elsewhere j^ointed out, these conditions have, for a number of years, 

 not been realized. 



(G.) — Coitio7i. 



295. An erroneous statement concerning the manner of life of the 

 fur-seal, which has important bearings in various ways, but which has 

 luiturally arisen and has been as naturally maintained in consequence 

 of the too exclusive attention paid by most writers on this subject to 

 the breeding islands, is that the fecundation of the female is, and can 

 oidy be, accomplished on shore. Bryant has, however, distinctly stated 

 that coi)ulatiou very often occurs in the water, and in the description 

 of seal life iirepared by him for Professor Allen, he adds: "When there 

 was a full supply of breeding males copulation occurred mainly on the 

 breeding grounds, the half-bulls (or reserves) participating to only a 

 limited extent, and was rarely seen to occur in the water. Since 1874, 

 owing to the decrease in the number of breeding males, a much larger 

 proportion of the females receive the males in the water, so that on any 

 still day after the 20th July, by taking a canoe and going a little off 

 shore, considerable numbers maybe seen pairing and readily approached 



so near as to be fully observed.! In another place the same 

 53 gentleman is even more precise, writing : " O^ing to the position 

 of the genital organs, however, coition on land seems not to be 

 the natural method, and only rarely — perhaps in three cases out of ten — 

 is the attempt to copulate under such circumstances effectual." Mr. 

 W. H. Dall, again, in a manuscript note supplied to Professor Allen, 

 says: " They [the females] sleep in the water lying on their sides, with 

 the two flippers [of the u])per side] out of the water, and receive the 

 male in the' same position." | 



290. Special inquiries made by us on this particular subject have fully 

 confirmed Bryant's original statements, the evidence obtained including 

 that of four or five gentlemen who have had long experience with the 

 Pribyloff" and Commander Islands, and several intelligent and observ- 

 ant hunters who have been engaged in sealing at sea. 



297. The particular importance attaching to this subject depends on 

 the circumstance that the possibility of connection being accomplished 

 at sea, and the greater frequency of this habit caused by the dearth of 

 adult males on the rookeries, enables us to explain in great measure 

 the irregularity, which has in late years much increased, of the date of 

 birth of the young. It shows, in fact, that the time of impregnation of 

 the female is not necessarily comprised within the period during which 

 she seeks the shore for the purpose of giving birth to the young. 



* Maynard's Report, Ex. Doc. No. 43, 44th Cons^ress, 1st Session, p. 3. This passage 

 is incorrectly quoted by Elliott in his Census Report, where Maynard la made to 

 state that the seals have each from twenty to fifty cows. 



t Senate, Ex. Doc. No. 32, 41st Congress, 2nd Session, p. 5, "Monograph of North- 

 American rinnipcds," pp. 385. 405. 



t "Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool.,*' vol. 1, Part I, p. 100. 



