66 FUR-SEAL FISIIEKIES OF ALASKA. 



ir> to 20 females at the stations nearest the water, and for tliose hack in order from 

 that line to tlie rear, ' from 5 to 12; hut there are so many exceptional cases, so many 

 instances where 45 and 50 females are all under the charge of 1 male ; and then a<j;aiu 

 where there are 2 or 3 females only, that this question was and is not entirely satis- 

 fac-tory in its settlement to my mind. 



Neai Ketavie Point, and just ahove it to the north, is an old washout of the hasalt 

 hy the surf, which has chiseled, as it were, from the foundation of the island a lava 

 tahle with a single roadway or land passage to it. Upon the summit of this foot- 

 stool, 1 counted 45 cows, all under the charge of an old veteran. He had them penned 

 u]) cm tills tahle rock hy taking his stand at the sate, as it were, through which they 

 passed up and passed down — a Turkish brute typified. 



Tims ill 1872, when the rookeries were carefully observed with refer 

 en(;e to this question, I found a general average of fifteen coics to each 

 &«// (without taking into consideration the virgin females); in 1800 a 

 general average of forty io fiftg eoica to caeh old bull (no yoiin,ii' ones 

 abcmt) is the result of careful investigation, and single harems, in 

 v.'hich I liare eounted over one hundred eoicSj each in the tiimsy charge 

 of an old and weary "sea-catcli !" Such harems were not uncommon. 

 This unnatural disproportion of the sexes on these breeding grounds 

 to day, renders the service there, of reproduction, quite lifeless: almost 

 impotent; wholly so in a large aggregate of cases. 



Therefore, with full knowledge of this state of the Pribilov rookeries, 

 I say that their condition will be still worse next year — will be no bet- 

 ter fur the next four or five years — indeed, it will not, can not, mend 

 until fresh male blood matures and comes upon these fields. These 

 animals must grow up from the pups of last year, and those born this 

 season (the others are either dead, or worthless if alive), and it will 

 take at least seven years for them to do so, and prove their power to 

 check ami hold these demoralized and diminished herds from their 

 downward grade of the present hour. 



The young male seals on these islands mnst hare a rest: a full and 

 earnest oi)portunity to mature and go unshorn of their virility, upon 

 these dwindling rookeries. If they are not at once spared and sub- 

 stantially undisturbed for at least six or seven years to come, with a 

 l)rompt suppression of pelagic sealing on the other hand, then it is 

 idle to talk of or ])lan for the restoration and preservation of the seal 

 life on our islands in Bering Sea. 



Then, when it shall be proper and safe to again kill surplus male fur 

 seals for their skins, as a matter of revenue and ])rofit, an entirely new 

 net of regulations as to the manner of driving and Idlling m nst he enforced;^ 

 and these regulations must be, will be, <|uite difterent from those which 

 have been the law up there during the last twenty-one years. That 

 experience, however, so dearly bought since 1882, now gives us full 

 knowledge of the disease, and understanding for its cure. 



'At the rear of all these rookeries there is invariably a large number of able-bodied 

 males which have come late, but wait patic^ntly, yet in vain, for families, most of 

 them having had to fight as desperately for the privilege of being there as any of 

 their more fortunately located neighbors, who are nearerthe water, and insuceession 

 from there to where they are themselves; but the cows do not like to be in any out- 

 side position. They can not be coaxed out where they are not in close company with 

 their female mates and masses. They lit; most (juietly and contentedly in the largest 

 masses, and cover the surface of the ground so thickly that there is hardly moving 

 or turning room until the females cease to come from the sea. The inaction on the 

 part of the males in the rear, during the breeding si-ason, only seiwes to(|naiify them 

 to move into tlie ])laces wliich are necess;!rily vacated by those males that are. in the 

 ineautime, < bliged to leave from virile exhaustion or incipient wounds. All the sur- 

 plus al)le-hodied males that have not been successful in eft'ecting a landing on the 

 rookeries, can not, at any one time duringthe season, beseen here on this rear line. 

 Only a portion of their number are in sight; the others are either loafing at sea, 

 adjacent, or a^t^ liauled out in morose squads between the rookeries on the i)eache8. 



- See p. 228 poatca. Appendix; text of Kevised Kegulations. 



