fJ8 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



going ou for a couple of years, though uot to the same extent. Now, if intelligent 

 and honest persons, at the close of the season of 180-1, had been asked, while viewing 

 that rookery, whether there were, say, 18,000 bachelor seals (outside the ])aps of that 

 year) in sight or within a comparatively short distance, they would be obliged to answer 

 no. The tpiestion then becomes pertinent: Whence, then, came the !»,000 bachelors 

 killed in 18!).") on that rookery (hardly any yearlings showed up at all) and the prob- 

 able other 0,000 that perished during the winter by being killed by the pelagic sealers, 

 or otherwise! The bulk of these 18,000 must have stayed away from the immediate 

 neighborhood of the island, and as bachelor seals are not known to haul out in great 

 bodies very far from the breeding-grounds there is every reason to conclude that they 

 stayed at sea. 



To fully weigh this answer, it is necessary to remember that the bachelor seals, 

 especially the younger classes, have no functions to perform on land during the breed- 

 ing season. I do not believe that a single good reason can be advanced in defense of 

 a proposition that the hauling out of the bachelor is of any advantage to the indirklual. 

 Nor does it seem probable that all the bachelor seals are subject to a very pressing 

 desire to go ashore until the sexual instinct is awakened. The hauling out on dry land 

 by any immature seal is, therefore, only the result of the habit having been inherited. 

 It is therefore likely to be of very varied intensity, and there is nothing intrinsically 

 improbable in admitting that tliis habit in some, or even in many, is only awakened at 

 the approach of sexual maturity. It must, furthermore, be borne in mind that the 

 bachelor seals require an abundance of food no less than the females. The nursimj of 

 the young makes it imperative for the latter to visit the distant feeding-grounds, but 

 also to return regularly to the rookery. The bachelor seal, on the other hand, in 

 contradistinction to the old fat bulls remaining the entire season on the rookery, needs 

 a big food supply because he is [p-oiritig; but diflerent from the female, he has no 

 individual business on the rookei-y. Of course, while there is no advantage to the 

 individual bachelor in hauling out, there is an advantage to the species, inasmuch as it 

 tends to strengthen the inherited habit which insures the return of the necessary 

 number of breeding males at a later age to their respective rookeries, but this propo- 

 sition does not involve any necessity for all to do so. 



The above observations and reflections, which are chiefly submitted in order to 

 emphasize that it is necessary to allow for a certain latitiule in the habits of the seals, 

 I am now going to follow up with a series of special observations upon certain phases 

 of fur-seal life which I made during the investigations of last summer. They are in 

 part corroborative of observations made by investigatois in other localities, particu- 

 larly the Pribylof Islands, while, in part, opposed to the opinions held by some other 

 observers. In so far as this diversity of opinion affects certain theories only, my 

 deductions will stand or fall upon their own logic; but where there is a disagreement 

 as to the i\u:ts I beg to remind my readers that the facts, as here set forth, only relate 

 to the conditions found on the Commander Islands and more particularly on Bering 

 Island. If the facts observed by me difler from those established by others, it does 

 not necessarily follow that one of the two observations is erroneous. I will again 

 recall the fact of the bachelors mixing among the females and the consequent driving 

 of the latter on Bering Island in order to show there are dittereuces between the 

 conditions there and npi>ii the Pribylof Islands. 



