THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 39 



into my laboratory, and finding that it could walk about and make a great noise, I attempted to feed it, with the 

 idea of bavmg a comfortable subject to my pencil, for life study, of the young in the varied attitudes of sleep and 

 motion. It refused everything that I couM summon to its attention as food; and, alternately sleeping and walking, 

 in its clumsy fashion, about the floor, it actually lived nine days spending the half of every day in floundering 

 over the floor, accompanying all movement with a persistent, hoarse, blaating cry and I do not believe it ever had 

 a single drop of its mother's milk. 



In the pup, the head is the only disproportionate feature at birth, when it is compared with the adult form ; the 

 neck being ulso relatively shorter and thicker. The eye is large, round and full, but almost a " navy blue " at times, 

 it soon changes into the blue-black of adolescence. 



The females appear to go to and come from the water to feed and bathe, quite frequently, after bearing their 

 young, and the immediate subsequent coitus with the male ; and usually return to the spot or its immediate 

 neighborhood, where they leave their pups, crying out for them, and recognizing the individual replies, though ten 

 thousand around, all together, should blaat at once. They quickly single out their own and nurse them. It would 

 certainly be a very unfortunate matter if the mothers could not identify their young by sound, since their pups get 

 together like a great swarm of bees, and spread out upon the ground iu what the sealers call " pods", or clustered 

 groups, while they are young and not very large ; but from the middle or end of September, until they leave the 

 islands for the dangers of the great Pacific, in the winter, along by the first of November, they gather iu this 

 manner, sleeping and frollicking by tens of thousands, bunched together at various places all over the islands 

 contiguous to the breediag-grounds, and right on them. A mother comes up from the sea, whither she has been to 

 wash, and perhaps to feed, for the last day or two, feeling her way along to about where she thinks her pup should 

 be at least where she left it last but perhaps she misses it, and finds instead a swarm of pups in which it has beeu 

 incorporated, owing to its great fondness for society. The mother, without first entering into the crowd of thousands, 

 calls out just as a sheep does for a lamb ; and, out of all the din she if not at first, at the end of a few trials 

 recognizes the voice of her offspring, and then advances, striking out right and left, toward the position from which 

 it replies. But if the pup happens at this time to be asleep, it gives, of course, no response, even though it were 

 close by ; in the event of this silence the cow, after calling for a time without being answered, curls herself up and 

 takes a nap, or lazily basks, to be usually more successful, or wholly so, when she calls again. 



The pups themselves do not know their own mothers a fact which I ascertained by careful observation but 

 they are so constituted that they incessantly cry out at short intervals during the whole time they are awake, and iu 

 this way the mother can pick out from the monotonous blaating of thousands of pups, her own, and she will not 

 permit any other to suckle it; but the "kotickie" themselves attempt to nose around every seal- mother that comes 

 in contact with them. (See note, 39, I.) 



DISORGANIZATION OF THE EOOKERIES. Between the end of July and the 5th or 8th of August of every year, 

 the rookeries are completely changed in appearance; the systematic and regular disposition of the families or harems 

 over the whole extent of breeding-ground has disappeared ; all that clock-work order which has heretofore existed 

 seems to be broken up. The breeding-season over, those bulls which have held their positions since the first of 3Iay 

 leave, most of them thin in flesh and weak, and of their number a very*large proportion do not come out again on 

 land during the season ; but such as are seen at the end of October and November, are in good flesh. They have a 

 new coat of rich, dark, grey-brown hair and fur, with gray or grayish ocher " wigs" of longer hair over the shoulders, 

 forming a fresh, strong contrast to the dull, rusty, brown and umber dress in which they appeared to us during the 

 summer, and which they had begun to shed about the first of August, in common with the females and the 

 "holluschickie". After these males leave, at the close of their season : .s work and of the rutting for the year, those 

 of them that happen to return to the land in any event do not come back until the end of September, and do not 

 haul upon the rookery-grounds again. As a rule they prefer to herd together, like the younger males, upon the sand- 

 beaches and rocky points close to the water. 



The cows and pups, together with those bulls which we have noticed in waiting in the rear of the rookeries, 

 and which have been in retirement throughout the whole of the breeding-season, now take possession, iu a very 

 disorderly manner, of the rookeries. There come, also, a large number of young, three, four, and five-year old 

 males, which have been prevented by the menacing threats of the older, stronger bulls, from landing among the 

 females during the rutting-seasou. 



Before the middle of August three-fourths, at least, of the cows at this date are off in the water, only coming 

 ashore at irregular intervals to nurse and look after their pups a short time. They presented to my eye, from the 

 summits of the bluffs round about, a picture more suggestive than anything I have ever seen presented by animal 

 life, of entire comfort and enjoyment. Here, just out and beyond the breaking of the rollers, they idly lie on the 

 rocks or sand beaches, ever .and anon turning over and over, scratching their backs and sides with their fore- and 

 hind-flippers. The seals on the breeding-ground appear to get very lousy. (See note, 39, K.) 



MANGY cows AND PUPS. The frequent winds and showers drive and spatter sand into their fur and eyes, 

 often making the latter quite sore. This occurs when they are obliged to leave the rocky rookeries and follow their 

 pups out over the sand-ridges and flats, to which they always have a natural aversion. On the hauling-grounds 



