HABITS. 347 



" I am not able to say authoritatively that these animals come 

 back and take up the same position on the breeding-grounds 

 occupied by them during the preceding season. From my 

 knowledge of their action and habit, and from what I have 

 learned of the natives, I should say that very few, if any of 

 them, make such a selection and keep these places year after 

 year. One old bull was pointed out to me on the Eeef Gar- 

 butch Eookery as being known to the natives as a regular visitor 

 at, close by, or on the same rock every season during the past 

 three years, but he failed to re-appear on the fourth ; but if 

 these animals came each to a certain place and occupied it reg- 

 ularly, season after season, I think the natives here would know 

 it definitely ; as it is, they do not. I think very likely, how- 

 ever, that the older bulls come back to the same rookery-ground 

 where they spent the previous season, but take up their posi- 

 tions on it just as the circumstances attending their arrival will 

 permit, such as fighting other seals which have arrived before 

 them, &c. 



"With the object of testing this matter, the Russians, during 

 the early part of their possession, cut off the ears from a given 

 number of young male seals driven up for that purpose from 

 one of the rookeries, and the result was that cropped seals were 

 found on nearly all the different rookeries or 'hauling-grounds ' 

 on the islands after. The same experiment was made by agents 

 two years ago, who had the left ears taken off from a hundred 

 young males which were found on Lukannon Eookery, Saint 

 Paul's Island ; of these the natives last year found two on No- 

 vastosh-nah Eookery, ten miles north of Lukannon, and two 

 or three from English Bay and Tolstoi Eookery, six miles west 

 by water ; one or two were taken on Saint George's Island, 

 thirty-six miles to the southeast, and not one from Lukannon 

 was found among those that were driven from there ; and, prob- 

 ably, had all the young males on the two islands been driven 

 up and examined, the rest would have been found distributed 

 quite equally all around, although the natives say that they 

 think the cutting off of the animal's ear gives the water such 

 access to its head as to cause its death ; this, however, I think 

 requires confirmation. These experiments would tend to prove 

 that when the seals approach the islands in the spring they 

 have nothing but a general instinctive appreciation of the fitness 

 of the land as a whole, and no especial fondness for any partic- 

 ular spot. 



