90 ALASKA. 



possessiou of data which will serve as a correct guide from year 

 to year. 



As the seals come to laud boldly first and last, and are not wild 

 or wary, the breeding-grounds may and should be inspected 

 throughout, every few days, by the agent in charge, irom the 

 time of the early arrivals in May until the period of general 

 departure in the autumn, in order that he may map down and 

 fix in black and white the precise boundaries assumed by the 

 breeding-seals for the season, giving the result at the close of 

 his labors of an accurate survey of the area awA position of the 

 ground covered during the season by the cows, bulls, and pups 

 on the rookeries, so that he can at once detect anj^ change that 

 may and is likely to occur in their hauling and numbers for the 

 next season. 



This is the only w^ay in which an agent of the Government 

 can correctly report, year after year, as to the condition of the 

 seal-life on these grounds, detecting any increase or diminution 

 of the same as season succeeds season. This is a step impera- 

 tively necessary for a Government agent to take, and should 

 not be neglected. 



During the first week of inspection some of those arriving 

 earliest will frequently take flight to the water when ajiproached, 

 but these runaways soon return. By the end of May, however, 

 they will hardly move to the right or left when you attempt 

 to pass through them. At this time, about two weeks before 

 the females begin to come in a body, they become entirely 

 indifferent to man or anything else save their ow^n kind, and so 

 continue the rest of the season. 



The seals upon the rookeries and hauliug-grouuds are not 

 afiTected by the smell of blood and carrion arising from the 

 killing-grounds or from the stench of blubber-fires which 

 burn in the native villages. This trait is well illustrated by 

 the attitude of the two rookeries near the village of Saint Paul's. 

 The breeding-ground on the spit at the head of the lagoon is 

 not more than forty yards from the great killing-grounds, being 

 separated only from the seventy or eighty thousand rotting 

 carcasses by a slough less than ten yards wide. The seals can 

 smell the blood and carrion upon this fiehl from near the time 

 they land in tbe spring until they leave in the autumn ; while 

 the general southerly summer-winds waft to them the odor and 

 sounds of a native village not over two hundred rods south of 

 them. All this has no efiect upon the seals, for the rookery, as 



