THE RUSSIAN FUR-SEAL ISLANDS. 69 



FOOD OF SEALS AT THE ISLANDS AND EXCREMENTS ON THE ROOKERIES. 



The question as to wliat auiiiiiils funiisli the bulk of the food of the fur-seals can 

 not be solved positively on the rookeries. My investigations last summer corroborated 

 those of twelve and thirteen years ago and tally with those of others, viz, empty 

 stomachs with a few stones in them, and occasionally a few beaks of cephalopods or 

 very rarely the backbone of some unlucky fish. Since, however, as 1 have already 

 pointed out, the bachelor seals on account of their jjrowth must necessarily take a great 

 deal of food during the summer, the above negative result does prove pretty positively 

 that the seals on the Commander Islands must, a.s a rule, obtain their food so far from 

 the islands that it is thoroughly digested before they return to the hauling-grouuds. 



I emphasize again the " as a rule," because there are single observations to the 

 contrary. Thus, I was informed on Bering Island that once on the South Ivookery a 

 tlock of bachelors was so full of octopods that they vomitetl up quantities of these 

 mollusks while being driven. 



It is true the statement that the bachelor seals must necessarily feed because 

 they are in a stage of continued growth is a purely theoretical one, and it has 

 been seriously denied that they feed during the season to any much greater extent 

 than the old bulls. In su])port of this contention is quoted the observation by the 

 British Bering Sea Commissioners (Rep. Brit. Conim., p. 43) as to the absence of 

 excrementitious matter upon the rookeries. Though my observations, more particu- 

 larly on the Commander Islands, do not agree with theirs, or Bryant's, I am not going 

 to dispute their accuracy on that account, but 1 do maintain that their negative 

 result does not prove anything, while juy positive observations to the contrary do 

 prove that the seals take nourishment throughout the season. And now for my facts. 



Anyone examining the carcasses on the killing-grounds immediately after the 

 killing can not lielp observing that a good many of the dead seals at the moment they 

 were slain had voided a greater or less (juantity of ocher-yellow excrement of a 

 creamy consistency. This observation I have not only made on tlie Comnuinder 

 Islands at every killing I have there witnessed (and the unpleasantness of handling 

 the seals thus soiled has very vividly impressed my mind), but also on St. Paul 

 Island durnig the only drive it was my iirivilege to foUow there, viz, on June 26, 

 1895. Here is the entry relating to the latter observation: 



Mr. True .afterwards opened a number of stomachs without (iudiug auy food in them, aud I opened 

 one, which had just voided a (juantity of fluid excrement, with similar result. Quite a number of 

 seals voided excrement of like nature. 



On the 2d of August, 18!t5, Mr. Grebnitski and 1 landed and established (mr camp 

 at Babinski Padjom, Glinka Itookery, Copper Island, on the former hauling-ground 

 of the bachelors. A few half-bulls only were located at the eastern end of the bay, 

 all that was now left of this rookery. Here are the words of the diary: 



Afti-r supper I went over to the eastern cud of the bay, where the polusikatchi above alluded to 

 had been lyiuf;(for upon our settling down in their neighborhood all of them sought safety in the sea). 

 The entire narrow and steep beach which lines the precipitous cliffs (300 feet and more), forming the 

 coast here consists of rounded atones of various sizes, from that of a marble to that of a man's head, 

 but averaging perhaps that of a list, and of a light-gray color. On this jiearl-gray ground thi^ station 

 of each half-bull was ch'arly marked with a brown stain, aud all around patches of semifluid 

 excrements were found in various stages of drying up and disintegration. The freshest excrements 



