FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OP ALASKA. 79 



I now know that the holluschickie haul on either St. George or St. 

 Paul ishmds indifferently, as they go and come throughout the sealing 

 season. The proi)ortion of St. Paul bred holluschickie, must be quite 

 large on St. George, since that island lays directly in the path of the 

 incoming and outgoing seals as they first arrive from the south at the 

 opening of the season and thereafter sally forth from the St. Paul haul- 

 ing grounds during the summer at frequent intervals to fish and search 

 for similar food. The greatest cod and herring schools, pollock and 

 salmon runs of Bering Sea lie to the southeastward of St. Paul, around 

 to the northwest, and St. George is squarely in the road. 



These hauling grounds of St. George Island, which were never, by 

 the nature of the land, as broad or extended as those of St. Paul, were, 

 however, m 1872 polished very brightly by the hollns(diickie: but now,, 

 in 1890, the same utter desolation which prevails over them on St. Paul 

 also exists there. The hauling grounds at Zapadnie are simply grass- 

 grown, also those of Starry Ateel; while the Great Eastern parade is a 

 mere suggestion, and the fine sweep of the IsTorth Eookery looks like a 

 soft green lawn from the village. As for the Little Eastern, not a single 

 drive has been made from there this year; at no time was there more 

 than 12 to lo holluschickie upon its grassy borders last July or August! 



As for St. Paul, I walked day after day last summer, over the grass- 

 grown deserted hauling grounds of Southwest Point, of Zapadnie, of 

 English Bay, Lukannon, Ketavie, Polavina, and Novastoshnah with 

 the same feeling I should have were I to enter upon and walk over the 

 abandoned and grass-grown streets of a once po})ulous and busy city, 

 which 1 had previously visited in all of its prosperity, only sixteen 

 years ago ! 



In order to j)resent a clear, sharp contrast between the appearance 

 and condition of these hauling grounds and their occupants as they 

 were in 1872-1874 and are to-day, 1800, I have arranged the following 

 epitome. I do not carry the parallel column beyond St. Paul, since 

 the status of St. George is precisely similar: My publication of the 1874 

 notes were made in my Monograph of the Seal Islands: Tenth Census, 

 United States, 1881. 



of the croppies that had returned from the perils of the deep, whence they sojourned 

 during the winter, would have l>eeu distributed quite equally about the Pribilov 

 hauling grounds. Although the natives say that they think the cutting oft" of the 

 animal's car gives the water such access to its head as to cause its death, yet, I 

 noticed that those examples which we had recognized by this auricular nuitilation, 

 were normally fat and well develojied. Tlieir theory does not appeal to my belief, 

 and it certainly requires contirmation. 



These experiments would tend to prove A^ery cogently and conclusively that when 

 tbe seals ai)proach the islands in the spring they have nothing in their minds but a 

 general instinctive appreciation of the litness of the land as a whole: and no special 

 fondness or determination to select any one particular sjjot, not even the place of 

 their birth. A study of my map of the distribution of the seal life on St. Paul 

 clearly indicates that the landing of the seals on the respective rookeries is influ- 

 enced greatly by the direction of the wind at tbe tiuje of their approach to the 

 islands in the spring and early summer. The prevailing airs, blowing as they do at 

 that season from the north and northwest, carry far out to sea the odor of the old 

 rookery flats, together with the fresh scent of the pioneer bulls which have located 

 themselves on these breeding grounds three or four weeks in advance of their kind. 

 The seals come np from the great North Pacific, and hence it will be seen that the 

 rookeries of the south and southeastern shores of St. Paul Island receive nearly all 

 the seal life, although tliere are miles of perfectly eligible ground at Nahsayvernia or 

 north shore. To settle this matter beyond all argument, however, I know is an exceed- 

 ingly difiicult task, for the identification of individuals from one season to another 

 among the hundreds of thousands and even millions that come under the eye on one 

 or all of these great rookeries, is well nigh impossible. 



