28 FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 



Now, is it not entirely plain that the females as they rest on the breedinj"; gronnils, 

 reqnire l)nt ;J square I'eet of surface; that their pups recjuire a trifle less than 1 s(|uare 

 foot each, and that the bulls or adult males occupy little more than 8 or 10 square 

 feet? But, rioht at this point, yon may reasonably ask, "While it is clear that 

 4 square feet of area will embrace a female fur seal and her offspring, yet why do you 

 ignore that larger space which you admit the bull occupies?" 



For this reason : I have not been able to tix upon the number of virgin females 

 which have been upon this breeding ground during the rutting season, for the reas<m 

 that these females naturally leave no mark behind them of their being here, as the 

 other classes of iemales do, and they do not remain themselves long on the field alter 

 being served; so, it was reasonable to give each bull an average of at least four of 

 these nubiles^ at the lowest calculation. This would cover the ground which he occu- 

 pies, and reduces the whole basis of calculation to tiie simplest form, viz, 2 siiuare 

 feet for each animal, big and little — bulls, cows, and pups — that existed on those 

 breeding grounds as these animals hauled out and bred in 1872-1874. 



Everybody admitted in 1872-1874, who was on the islands and especially charged 

 ■with observing the seals, that I was right in then saying that the seals obeyed a 

 natural law of distribution over a given area of ground when breeding; that they 

 never crowded here or thinned out there; that the ground was densely occupied and 

 uniformly, no matter whether only a belt under the cliffs or where the rookery ground 

 extended for hundreds of feet away back from the sea margin. 



The dense massing of the seals on the rookery ground was then made evident to 

 the most careless observer when his attention was tixed on the subject. It was made 

 by the appearance of the pups themselves, which, between the lOtii and 20th of .July 

 every year, lay in so solidly together that the ground itself seemed fairly covered by 

 them alone, since not more than one-third of the mothers were on shore among the 

 pups at any one time. 



Before .summing up tlie grand total. 1 shall now, in sequence, review 

 each one of the several rookeries of St. Paul, taking them in their order 

 as they occur, going north from the Reef point. Tlie accompanying 

 msbpH show the exact area oc('U])ied by the breeding seals and their 

 young in the season of 1874, which is the date of mj/ latest field work 

 on the Pribilov Islands up to this year. 



I may add that my method of surveying these breeding grounds in 

 1872-1874 was by means of measured l3ase lines, taking my angles and 

 cross bearings with an azimuth compass. In 1S90, 1 used a fine prismatic 

 compass; otherwise, precisely the same method was again employed. I 

 made a careful land survey of each rookery on St. Paul Island between 

 May 22 and June 4, so that when the females all arrived by «Tuly 10, I 

 was able to then go out upon each one of these rookeries with my fin- 

 ished plat of the land in hand : and, upon it, in the field, again plat the 

 massing of the breeding animals as they exhibited themselves, without 

 a moment's delay, so as to properly and deliberately finish the entire 

 work before the rutting season was over by July 20. By this time those 

 rookeries are scatteinng and scattered, as they always are by the lapse 

 of that period, since the old bulls then relax their absolute control of 

 their harems and permit all classes to wander at will. 



In this connection it is pleasant for me to say now, that in 1874 I was 

 accompanied by Lieut. Washburn Maynard, V. S. IsT., who, being also a 

 trained topographer, aided me in verifying my surveys of 1872-73. He 

 gave this subject close attention. He appreciated its importance, and 

 in his published report to the Secretary of the Navy in 1875, he uses 

 the following language: 



It is of very great significance in this connection to know how many seals come 

 annually to the islands, or rather to understand how many may be killed for their 

 skins ammally, without causing less to come hereafter than do at the j)resent time. 

 To determine how many there are with accuracy is a task almost on a ))ar with that 

 of numbering the stars. The singular motion of the animals when on shore^ the 

 great varitsty m si/e, color, and ])OHition; the extent of surface over which they are 

 sjiread, and the fact tliat it can not b(> determined exactly what proportion of them 

 of their several classes are on shore at any given time; all thes(^ desiderata for com- 

 prehension make it 8imj)ly impossible to get more than an ajiproximation of their 

 numbers. They have been variously estimated at from one to fifteen millions. 



I think the most accurate enumeration yet made is that by Mr. H. W. Elliott, 



