330 THE FUR SEALS OF THE PUIBILOF ISLANDS. 



rOLOVINA KO()KEUIE.S. 



The J'oloviiiii rookeries .show some decrease from the eouditioiis of last year. The 

 decrease in liauIiiiK'-g'roiiiKl area is more marked. The space at present occupied is 

 but a fraction of the former area. It is almost impossible to count the harems on the 

 main part of I'olovina, but Coh)nel Murray reports tinding 13S harems on the 15th, 

 and, so far as we can Judge today, this is about right, though at this time the harems 

 are beginning to be demoralized. 



The maxinnim extension of the breeding area ou this rookery is still pretty well 

 defined by the position of the idle bulls. Of these there are nearly enough to fill the 

 old grounds, but the scarcity of females leaves two-fifths of them without harems. 

 Tiiis thinning out of cows indicates a falling ofl' much greater than the mere reduction 

 of roolcery space on the map can exhibit, because not only is less space occupied, but 

 this less space is more thinly occupied. 



The rookeries are fullest about July 15. Then each harem has its characteristic 

 form and |)osition. When cows are many and the grounds level, various harems run 

 together in a mass. Each bull at first tries to control his own cows and round them 

 up; but later on this can not be done, and finally two or thi'ee bulls rest on the 

 edge of the mass, holding the cows in common. 



After a while the wandering of the pup attracts the mother away from the 

 harem. Impregnated cows have no further interest in the bull and follow the pups 

 or go into the water, and the harems grow vague in their lines of demarkatiou. This 

 is more or less true by .luly IS, when one-fourth, perhaps one-third, of the cows only 

 are ever present. 



The attractiveness of the bulls cuts no figure in building up harems. The bull 

 does no courting, nor does he make any effort to please the cows. The position he 

 holds is, in the first place, the reward of his force and pugnacity; but the size of the 

 harem is deternuiied by the advantage of the position and with reference to the place 

 of laiuling of the cows. He can not leave this position to secure cows, without being 

 supplanted. lie must wait for them to come to him. All Imlls seem to be alike to 

 the cows, but the cows like certain places, and the more so if their pups are there. 

 When the pups are podded, the cows scatter about and the rookery spreads. 



As a rookery declines, the masses break up into individual harems, rounded up 

 by the bulls, and the breaks between the harems become larger. This makes a count 

 by space occupied a thing very untrustworthy. t)n rocky ground, among lava blocks 

 and gullies, the scattered arrangement is universal, and probably has always been so, 

 as no massed arrangenunit is possible under the rough clifis of St. Paul. On Polovina 

 cliffs and Kitovi little harems may be seen stowed away in all sorts of ([ueer corners. 



On the way home three dead pups, not in a condition to be examined, were found 

 on the beach approaching Lukauin Rookery, but a very long way distant from the 

 harems. These pups could hardly have wandered there, and were probably dead pups 

 washed over from Lukauin by the high surf, as they seem to have been dead for some 

 time. They do not appear emaciated. 



'This whiilc subject of the death of pups must be reviewed in the light of the fuller Investiga- 

 tions of 18!t7. 



