FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 55 



LITTLE EASTERN ROOKERY (1890). 



[/<s condition and appearance July, ISOO.^ 



This was not imu-li of a rookery in 1S73-74, and although it has fallen 

 away in accord with the general diminution of the seal life on these 

 islands, yet it haslield its own proportionately much better than many 

 others. The most striking evidence of desolation is the grassing solidly 

 over, rank and luxuriant, of the hauling grounds in its rear and to the 

 eastward, which were so well polished off by tlie restless Hippers of 

 young male seals in 1873-74. Then these hauling grounds were not 

 driven from much; the seals were practically undisturbed, and when a 

 drive was made the seals were always merged into the larger drive from 

 the Great Eastern. 



Detailed anali/sis of the survei/ of Little Eastern rookery July 20, 1S90. 

 % [Sea margin beginning at A and ending at B, 800 feet.] 



Square feet. 

 800 feet sea margin, from A to li, with 12 feet average depth, massed 9,600 



Making ground for 4,800 seals — bulls, cows, and x)ups — against a total 

 of 13,000 in 1873-74. . 



THE GREAT EASTERN (1873-74). 

 [7fs condition and appearance July, 1S74.'] 



This is the fifth, and last rookery that we lind on St. George. It is 

 an imitation, in miniature, of Tolstoi on St. Paul, with the exceijtion ot 

 there being no parade ground in the rear of any character whatever. 

 It is from the summit of the cliffs, overlooking the narrow ribbon of 

 breeding seals right under them, that I have been able to study the 

 movements of the fur seal in the water to my heart's content; for, out 

 and under the water, the rocks to a considerable distance are covered 

 with a whitish algoid growth that renders the dark bodies of the swim- 

 ming seals and sea lions as conspicuous as is the image thrown by a 

 magic lantern of a silhouette on a screen prepared for its reception.^ 

 The low, rock}^ flats around the ])ool to the westward and northwest 

 of the rookery seemed to be filled up with a muddy alluvial wash that 

 the seals do not favor, hence nothing but holluschickie range round 

 about them. 



'The algoid vegetation of the marine shores of these islands is one that adds a 

 peculiar charm and beauty to their treeless, sunless coasts. Every kelp bed that 

 lloats raft-like in Bering Sea, or is ancliored to its rocky reefs, is fairly alive with 

 minute sea shrimps, tmy crabs, and little shells, which cling to its masses of inter- 

 woven fronds or dart in ceaseless motion tlirough, yet within, its interstices. It 

 is my firm l)elief that no better base of operations can be found for studying marine 

 invertebrata than is the post of St. Paul or St. George. The pelagic and tbe lit- 

 toral forms are sim])ly abundant beyond all estimation within Itounds of reason. Tlie 

 phosphorescence of the waters of Bering Sea surpasses in continued brilliant illumi- 

 uation anything that I have seen in soutliern and equatorial oceans. The crests of 

 the long unbroken line of breakers on Lukannon Beacli looked to me, one night iu 

 August, like so many flashings of liglilniug between Tolstoi Mees and Lukannon 

 Head, as the billows successively rolled in and broke. The seals swimming 

 under the water here on St. George and beneath tlie Black Blufts streaked their rapid 

 course like comets iu the sky, and every time their dark heads popped above the sur- 

 face of the sea they were marked by a blaze of scintillaut light. 



