ESTIMATES OF NUMBER, OF FUR SEALS. 77 



put upon its results. The parts of rookeries which can be counted to-day are so 

 circumscribed by cliffs and the narrowness of the beaches that to make a count of 

 them, even at the time of the greatest density of their population, would have been 

 but little more difficult than it is to-day. More seals were present on a given area, 

 but the area was no greater. The counting of these areas would of course not have 

 relieved the difficulty as to a complete census; but a definite and exact enumeration, 

 even of so small and accessible a breeding ground as Spilki, in 1874, could not have 

 failed to clear up many of the problems which have tended to increase the confusion 

 in past conditions. 



EARLY ESTIMATES. 



In considering the various estimates of earlier times, we purposely pass over that 

 of Bishop Veniaminof. It is too vague and unsatisfactory to be of any value. It 

 is, moreover, a prophecy of future results, based on assumed premises, rather than a 

 measure of actual conditions. Furthermore, it was made at a time (about 1834) when, 

 as we know, the herd had reached from some cause or other a state of approximate 

 annihilation. 



CAPTAIN BRYANT'S ESTIMATE. 



After the islands came into the possession of the United States the first attempt 

 to reach an estimate of the number of seals was made by Capt. Charles Bryant, agent 

 of the Government, sent in 1860 to investigate the condition of the herd. Captain 

 Bryant sums up his method of enumeration as follows: 1 



There are at least 12 miles of shore line on the island of St. Paul occupied by the seals as 

 breeding grounds, with the average width of 15 rods. There being about twenty seals to the square 

 rod, gives 1,152,000 as the whole number of breeding males and females. Deducting one-tenth for 

 males leaves 1,037,800 breeding females. 



He estimates the number of seals on St. George at one-half the number on St. 

 Paul. He further makes a rough estimate of the number of nonbreeding males, but 

 he does not work it out or give a total. In comparing the estimate of Captain Bryant 

 with the subsequent estimate of Mr. Elliott it must be noted that the young are not 

 included. 



THE FIRST ACREAGE ENUMERATION. 



This estimate is crude both in its methods and in its results, but it certainly 

 contains the germ of all subsequent acreage estimates of the seals. It was made and 

 its results were published at least two years before the work of Mr. Elliott, which 

 was begun in 1872. Whatever credit, therefore, belongs to the invention and execution 

 of this method of arriving at the population of the rookeries must rest with Captain 

 Bryant. His enumeration, though but a rough approximation, and probably so 

 considered by him, brought for the first time the fur-seal herd within the range of a 

 numerical estimate. 



ELLIOTT'S ESTIMATE OF 1872-1874. 



The next attempt at enumeration was made in 1872-1874 by Henry W. Elliott, 

 special agent sent by the United States Treasury Department to investigate the con- 

 dition of the herd. He followed the same general method inaugurated by Captain 



Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 1870, Vol. II, p. 106. 



