FUR SEALS OR SEA BEARS. 235 



persons would not have it in their power to establish a 

 base of operations within easy reaching distance of the 

 rookeries. 



Hutchinson Hill Rookery, on the Island of St. Paul, 

 is the principal breeding place of the Alaska Seals. Dur- 

 ing the winter the island is deserted, the Seals, late in the 

 fall, following the southward migration of the fish upon 

 which they feed. The first males to revisit the old haunts, 

 in the following spring, are very shy and sensitive; and 

 will spend several days swimming around among the 

 rocks before venturing to land. The first arrivals, though 

 not always the oldest, are generally the finest specimens, 

 of their race who are fully capable of maintaining pos- 

 session of the stations they may select. As a rule the 

 males do not re-occupy the same stations year after year, 

 although some will occasionally do so for a number of 

 seasons. Only a few of the bulls come ashore in May, but 

 when the humid, foggy, summer weather sets in, about 

 the first week in June, they come up, fat and sleek, by 

 hundreds and thousands, and having selected their sta- 

 tions, prepare for the reception of the females who begin 

 to arrive from three to four weeks later. 



The first females to land are always received with 

 marked attention by the stronger bulls, who by virtue 

 of their superior prowess have succeeded in securing 

 possession of the most available stations nearest the 

 shore. They are seldom allowed to remain long with 

 these however, as the males from the more inland sta- 

 tions take possession of them the first time their mas- 

 ters are away on the outlook for new additions to their 

 harems. In this way some of the unfortunate females 

 are again and again taken by the scruff of the neck, 

 as a cat seizes its kittens, and passed on from station 

 to station until they find security at last in one of the 

 families farthest away from the water. By the time 

 the last batch lands late in July, the males have become 

 so exhausted by constant fighting, and the stations have 

 become so fully occupied, that the late arrivals are allowed 

 to crowd their way unmolested through the fifteen or 

 sixteen rows of stations intervening between the shore 

 and the open ground, to the rear of the colony. There 

 they congregate in droves, always being careful how- 



