ST. GEORGE ISLAND. 



The Aspect and Condition of the Rookeries. 



North Rookery, 



This rookery occupies a stretch of rough shore, strewn with great blocks of basalt, 

 for the space of about 1,000-1,100 yards west of the village, on the north shore of the 

 island. 



Behind the more or less narrow beach rise low cliffs, broken here and there by gullies 

 giving easy access to the gently sloping plateau above, the main resort of the young seals 

 and bachelors. Such a configuration of low beach and higher background conveniently 

 approached is characteristic of the majority of the rookeries on both islands. In this case a 

 deep gully at the east (cf. photograph No. 95) and another about 300 yards beyond the 

 west end of the breeding rookery form the main ascents to the hauling-grounds. The 

 westernmost gully of the actual rookery (photograph No. 94) was, we were told, an 

 important ascent to the hauling-grounds ten or fifteen years ago. 



The harems occupy the beach in a line at first sight continuous, but interrupted by 

 five short breaks amounting in the aggregate to a space of about 150 yards. In the two 

 westernmost patches of the rookery the harems run back from the beach up two 

 convenient gullies to a distance in the westernmost case of about 50 yards from the 

 shore in the early part of the season. 



On our first visit (the 8th July) we attempted to compare the aspect of the rookery 

 with the outlines marked by Mr. Townsend, on the 18th July, 1895, upon Mr. Stanley 

 Brown's map of the rookery (cf. Sen. Doc 137, Part II, Chart I). 



Mi*. Townsend pointed out to us that the extremities of the re-entrant avenues in 

 the western gullies were now apparently slightly curtailed, that a small break existed, not 

 marked in his map, in the first or eastern patch, and that the middle patches were thinned 

 off at their ends. But it seemed to me that in at least one part (of the westernmost patch 

 but one) the space occupied was broader than the map displayed ; and bearing in mind, 

 firstly, that the original survey was a rough one (as Captain Moser and his officers proved 

 by a partial resurvey this year), and, secondly, that the plotting of the occupied areas by 

 a bird's-eye inspection was rougher still, and, thirdly, that our visit was ten days earlier in 

 date than that of Mr. Townsend the year before, and fell by so much the more short 

 of the period of maximum expansion of the rookery, it seemed clear to me that at least 

 no such curtailment of the rookery's extent had taken place within a year as could be 

 certainly discerned by the eye or demonstrated on the chart. 



(The " spreading " of the rookery as the season advances may be shown by a com- 

 parison of Mr. Macoun's photographs Nos. 2, 4, taken the 10th July, 1 896, with mine 

 No. 93 taken from the same station on the 80th J uly.) 



On the hauling-ground above the eastern end of the rookery (still on the occasion of 

 our first visit) we saw a body of about 200 bachelors, mostly young or old, those of inter- 

 mediate " killable " size being very few. A " drive " had taken place two days previously 

 (the 6th July) from this rookery and the neighbouring one of Staraye Atil, at which 700 

 were killed. The circumstance that another drive on the 13th July from the same two 

 rookeries yielded 487 skins, and a final one, on the 24th July, 308, illustrates the fact that 

 the bachelors, at least, are never all at once upon the rookery, but keep coming and going 

 between land and sea, so that any one apparent clearance is never a complete one. 



We counted a large number of harems with a view to ascertaining the average 

 number of cows. I, for instance, counted 34 harems west of the middle point of the 

 rookery, and obtained the following numbers : 43, 14, 15, 16, 67, 15, 8, 1, 2, 3, 1, 4, 50, 

 4, 1, 26, 10, 3, 10, 1, 4, 16, 5, 7, 49, 19, 5, 1, 132, 31, total 563, giving an average of 

 about 16'6. 



The large harem numbering 132 cows was by far the largest that we met with during 

 the summer. It was situated on the smooth flat rock above the last gully but one to the 

 west, its position being near the left of my photographs Nos, 90 and 91. The bull was 

 very large and active, going round and round his cows. In his immediate neighbourhood 

 were eight other well-grown bulls, one with fourteen cows, two with one each, the rest 

 with none. 



On my subsequent visit on the 30th July this large harem we found to be broken 



