FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 37 



makiiiin: ground for 28,000 seals — bulls, cows, and pups — against a total 

 of 105,000 in 1872-1874, a loss of 137,000 seals, or 85 percent, since then. 



This rookery is one of the worst wrecks in the general diminution — 

 it is the worst, having suffered a greater loss than any other on St. 

 Paul, or St. Oeorge, for that mutter. 



On Lnkannon this last summer, while there were two-iifths as many 

 cows as in 1872, yet the bulls did not average more than one-tifteeuth 

 of the number they showed in 1872. On Keetavie it was no better; if 

 anything a shade worse, no young bulls anj^vhere offering vService or 

 attempting to land. This undue proportion of the sexes and the gen- 

 eral apathy and advanced age of the breeding bulls, is characteristic 

 of all the rookeries to day, as we view theui on the Pribilov Islands, 

 ilere aud there, at wide intervals, we observe an alert, virile bull, while 

 its companions all around are stretched out in somnolence or regard- 

 ing the incoming cows with positive indifference. In 1872 it was just 

 the opposite. I made then the following note: 



Between the 12tb aud 14tli of June the first of the cow seals, as a rule, come up 

 from the sea; then the long agony of the waiting bnll.s is o\er, and they signalize it 

 by a period of universal, spasmodic, desperate fighting among tliemselves. Though 

 they have quarreled all the time from the moment tliey first landed aud continue 

 to do so until the end of the season — in August — yet that fighting which takes place 

 at this date is the bloodiest and most vindictive known to the seal. I presume that 

 the heaviest percentage of mutilation and death among the old males from these 

 brawls occur in this week of the earliest appearance of the females. 



A strong contrast now between the males and females looms up, both in size and 

 shape, that is heightened l)y the air of exceeding peace aud dove-like amiability 

 which the latter class exhibit, in contradistinction to the ferocity aud saturnine 

 behavior of the former. 



\^ TOLSTOI ROOKERY, 1872-1874. 



[Its condition and aj)p€araiice Jnh/. 1874.1 



Directly to th'^ west from Lnkannon, up along and around the head 

 of the Lagoon, is that seal-path road over which the natives bring the 

 holluschickie from Tolstoi. We follow this and take up our position 

 on several lofty grass-grown dunes, close to and overlooking another 

 rookery of great size; this is Tolstoi. 



We have here the largest hill slope of breeding seals on either island 

 peculiarly massed on the abruptly sloping flanks of Tolstoi Ridge, as 

 it falls to the sands of English Bay and ends suddenly in the precipi- 

 tous termination of its own name, Tolstoi Point. Here the seals are 

 in some places crowded up to the enormous de])tli of 500 measured 

 feet, from the sea margin of the rookery to its outer boundary and 

 limitation; and, when viewed as I viewed it in July, taking the angles 

 and lines shown on the accompanying sketch map, I considered it, with 

 the bluff terminating it at the south and its bold sweep, which ends 

 on the sands of English Bay, to be the most picturesque, though it is 

 not the most impressive, rookery on the island; especially so when that 

 parade ground, lying just back and over the point and upon its table 

 rock surface, is reached by the climbing seals under your eyes. 



If the observer will glance at the nmp, he will see that the parade 

 ground in question lies directly back, over, and about 150 feet above the 

 breeding seals immediately under it. The sand dune tracts, which 

 border the great body of the rookery, seem to check the holluschickie 

 from hauling to the rear: for sand drifts here, in a locality so high and 

 exjiosed to the full force of the wind, with more rapidity and conse- 

 quently more disagreeable energy to the seals than anywhere else on 

 the island. 



