142 ALASKA. 



iutelligence of expression, tbose of no other animal can be com- 

 liared. The lids are well supplied with eyelashes. 



I do not think that their range of vision on land, or out of the 

 water, is very great. I have had them (the adults) catch sight 

 of ray person, so as to distinguish it as a foreign character, three 

 and four hundred [)aces off, with the wind blowing strongly 

 from them toward myself, but generally they will allow you to 

 approach very close indeed, before recognizing your strangeness, 

 and the pups will s{;arcely notice the form of a human being 

 until it is fairly on them, whereupon they make a lively noise, 

 a medley of coughing, spitting, snorting, blaating, and get 

 away from its immediate vicinity, but instantly resume, how- 

 ever, their previous occui)ation of either sleeping or playing, 

 as though nothing had happened. 



But the power of scent is (together with their hearing, before 

 mentioned) exceedingly keen, for I have found that I would 

 most invariably' awake them from soundest sleep if 1 got to the 

 windward, even when standing a considerable distance off. 



To recapitulate and sum up the system of reproduction on 

 the rookeries as the seals seem to have arranged it, I would say, 

 that- 

 First. The earliest bulls appear to laud in a negligent, indo- 

 lent way, shortly after the rocks at the water's edge are free 

 from ice, frozen snow, &c. This is generally about the 1st to 

 the 5th of May, They land first and last in perfect confidence 

 and without fear, very fat, and of an average weight of five 

 hundred pounds ; some stayiug at the water's edge, some going 

 away back, in fact all over the rookery. 



Second. That by the 10th or 12th of June, all the stations on 

 the rookeries have been mapped out, fought for, and held iu 

 waiting for the cows by the strongest and most enduring bulls, 

 who are, as a rule, never under six years of age, and sometimes 

 three, and even occasionally four times as old. 



Third. That the cows make their first appearance, as a class, 

 by the 12th or 15th of June, in rather small numbers, but by 

 the 23d and 25th of this month they begin to flock up so as to 

 fill the harems very perceptibly, and by the 8th or 10th of July 

 they have most all come, stragglers excepted ; average weight 

 eighty pounds. 



Fourth. That the rutting season is at its height from the 10th 

 to the 15th of July, and that it subsides entirely at the end of 



