THE ALASKAN SEA-LION. 361 



year ; and then the natives occasionally shoot them, long after the 

 fur-seals have entirely disappeared. Again, it does not confine its 

 landing to the Pribylov Islands alone, as the fur-seal unquestionably 

 does, with reference to such terrestrial location in our own country. 

 On the contrary, it is a frequent visitor to almost all of the Aleutian 

 Islands : it ranges, as I have said before, over the mainland coast 

 of Alaska, south of Bristol Bay, and about the Siberian shores to 

 the westward, throughout the Kuriles and the Japanese northern 

 waters.* 



* The winter of 1872-73, which I passed on the Pribylov Islands, was so rig- 

 orous that those shores were ice-bound, and the sea covered with floes from Jan- 

 uary until May 28th ; hence I did not have an opportunity of seeing, for 

 myself, whether the sea-lion remains about its breeding-grounds there through- 

 out that period. The natives say that a few of them, when the sea is open, are 

 always to be found, at any day during the winter and early spring, hauled out 

 at Northeast Point, on Otter Island, and around St. George. They are, in my 

 opinion, correct; and, being in such small numbers, the " seevitchie" un- 

 doubtedly find enough subsistence in local Crustacea, pisces, and other food. 

 The natives, also, further stated that none of the sea-lions which we observe 

 on the islands during the breeding-season leave the waters of Bering Sea from 

 the date of their birth to the time of their death. I am also inclined to agree 

 with this proposition, as a general rule, though it would be strange if Pribylov 

 sea-lions did not occasionally slip into the North Pacific, through and below 

 the Aleutian chain, a short distance, even to travelling as far to the eastward 

 as Cook's Inlet. Eumetopitis xtetteri is well known to breed at many places be- 

 tween Attoo and Kadiak Islands. I did not see it at St. Matthew, however, 

 and I do not think it has ever bred there, although this island is only two hun- 

 dred miles away to the northward of the Seal Islands too many polar bears. 

 Whalers speak of having shot it in the ice-packs in a much higher latitude, 

 nevertheless, than that of St. Matthew. I can find no record of its breeding 

 anywhere on the islands or mainland coast of Alaska north of the fifty-seventh 

 parallel or south of the fifty-third parallel of north latitude. It is common on 

 the coast of Kamchatka, the Kurile Islands, and the Commander group, in 

 Russian waters. 



There are vague and ill-digested rumors of finding Eumetopias on the shores 

 of Prince of Wales and Queen Charlotte Islands in breeding rookeries ; I doubt 

 it. If it were so, it would be authoritatively known by this time. We do find 

 it in small numbers on the Farallones Rocks, off the entrance to the harbor of 

 San Francisco, where it breeds in company with, though sexually apart from, 

 an overwhelming majority of Zalophus ; and it is credibly reported as breed- 

 ing again to the southward, on the Santa Barbara, Guadaloupe, and other 

 islands of Southern and Lower California, consorting there, as on the Faral- 

 lones, with an infinitely larger number of the lesser-bodied Zalophm. 



There is no record made which shows that the fur-seals, even, have any 



