328 HISTOEY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



out to the westward and northward, which I have indicated from my observation of the rocks 

 awash, looking down upon them from the bluffs. Great numbers of water-fowl roost upon the 

 cliffs, and there are here about as many blue foxes to the acre as the law of life allows. A small, 

 shallow pool of impure water lies close down to the north shore, right under a low hill, upon which 

 the Kussians in olden time erected a huge Greek cross, which is still standing; indeed, it was their 

 habit to erect crosses on all the hills in those old times; one of them is standing at Northeast 

 Point, on the huge sand-dune which I have called Saint John, or Cross Hill; and another one, a 

 sound, stalwart stick, yet faces the gale and driving "poorgas" to-day on Boga Slov, as it has 

 faced them for the last sixty years. Otter Island has, since my return in 1872, had considerable 

 attention in the Treasury Department, owing to the fact that certain parties contended that it lies 

 without the jurisdiction of the law which covers and protects the seal-life on the Pribylov Islands. 

 This survey of mine, however, settles that question: the island is within the pale of law. It i* a 

 rock adjacent to and in the waters of Saint Paul, and resorted to only by those seals which are born 

 and belong upon the breeding-grounds of Saint Paul and Saint George, and I have never seen at any 

 one time more than three or four thousand "holluschickie" hauled out here. 



WALETIS ISLAND. To the eastward, 6 miles from Northeast Point, will be noticed a small 

 rock named Walrus Island. It is a mere ledge of lava, flat-capped, lifted just above the wash of 

 angry waves; indeed, in storms of great power, the observer, standing on either Cross or Hutch- 

 inson's Hills, with a field-glass, can see the water breaking clear over it. These storms, however, 

 occur late in the season, usually in October or November. This island has little or no commercial 

 importance, being scarcely more than a quarter of a mile in length and 100 yards in point of 

 greatest width, with bold water all around, entirely free from reefs or sunken rocks. As might be 

 expected, there is no fresh water on it. In a fog it makes an ugly neighbor for the sea-captains 

 when they are searching for Saint Paul; they all know it, and they all dread it. It is not resorted 

 to by the fur-seals or by sea-lions in particular; but, singularly enough, it is frequented by 

 several hundred male walrus, to the exclusion of females, every summer. A few sea-lions, but only 

 a very few, however, breed here. On account.of the rough weather, fogs, etc., this little islet is 

 seldom visited by the natives of Saint Paul, and then only in the egging season of late June and 

 early July; then this surf-beaten rock literally swarms with breeding water-fowl. 



This low, tiny, rocky islet is, perhaps, the most interesting single spot now known to the nat- 

 uralist, who may land in northern seas, to study the habits of bird-life; for here, without exertion 

 or risk, he can observe and walk among tens upon tens of thousands of screaming water-fowl, and 

 as he sits down upon the polished lava rock, he becomes literally ignored and environed by these 

 feathered friends, as they reassume their varied positions of incubation, which he disturbs them 

 from by his arrival. Generation after generation of their kind have resorted to this rock unmo- 

 lested, and to-day, when you get among them, all doubt and distrust seems to have been eliminated 

 from their natures. The island itself is rather unusual in those formations which we find peculiar to 

 Alaskan waters. It is almost flat, with slight, irregular undulations on top, spreading over an area 

 of five acres, perhaps. It rises abruptly, though low, from the sea, and it has no safe beach upon 

 which a person can land from a boat; not a stick of timber or twig of shrubbery ever grew upon 

 it, though the scant presence of low, crawling grasses in the central portions prevents the state- 

 ment that all vegetation is denied. Were it not for the frequent rains and dissolving fog, char- 

 acteristic of summer weather here, the guano accumulation would be something wonderful to con- 

 template Peru would have a rival. As it is, however, the birds, when they return, year after 

 year, find their nesting-floor swept as clean as though they had never sojourned there before. The 

 scene of confusion and uproar that presented itself to my astonished senses when 1 approached 



