FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 153 



delightful assurance that he is uever shot at or trapped afc this time of 

 the year. At tlie present hour they are sheddiug, and they look 

 scrubby enough. Generally, the old hair on the tail hangs the longest, 

 even after all is renewed everywhere else on tlieir bodies. Thus you 

 constantly see around you now, a bluish-gray fox running off with a 

 ilulfy, dried-grass colored tail — a very odd-looking contrast. 



July 7\ IH'JO.-yVrom a station on the bluffs overlooking the entire 

 stretch of the cliff belt of the breeding seals at Tolstoi, I passed two 

 hours this afternoon, intently observing the service which the bulls 

 below were rendering. There were 67 bulls directly within distinct 

 sweep of my vision: distinctly and widely separated; and these bulls 

 had some 1!,()0(> to 2,500 cows. It is fairly idle to attempt to express 

 the perfect im]iotency of these overdone and feeble old nuiles; sleeping 

 or dozing nciirly all of the time: and, on waking, teased by the females 

 without arousing them in the least. I saw in these two full hours of 

 attentive watching only three attempts to serve the cows by these 07 

 bulls, and each attem])t was a languid failure. Not a single half hull 

 or polseecatrh aiiemirt'DUi to land here or anywhere else for that matter 

 on the rool-crics today. How many of these cows are going off without 

 inr])regnation if not served when in heat? Do they ever return for if? 

 And if they do, where is that service to come from? Certainly not 

 from those already useless bulls which are hourly growing weaker as 

 the season culminattis. 1 saw to-day a nubile female and an older 

 one engaged at the same moment in teasing a languid old bull, which 

 made an ineffectual attempt to satisfy one of them, and failed. I never 

 witnessed such a scene in all of my observations of 1872-1874. Then 

 there were twenty bulls where there is one now, and three times or four 

 times as many cows. Late in the rutting season, about the 20th to the 

 24th of July, an occasional exhibition of languid impotence was seen: 

 but, it made no impression on my mind other than to note the fact that 

 here and there was a bull which was physically exhausted, chietly from 

 the effects of fighting. Still there were then so many virile bulls right 

 around it, ready and eager, that it did not signify. 



One of the odd orders at Tolstoi is the fact that the best massing of 

 the cows now is seen down on the sand at the extreme extension of the 

 rookery out toward Middle Hill. It gives one the only suggestion of 

 what the compact solid massing of the rookery was in 1872, and which 

 massing is now utterly lacking on these breeding grounds of St. Paul 

 and St. (leorge. 



There are few cows, pups, and bulls today on that cliff belt of Tolstoi. 

 Instead of an area of 3(! feet in width, densely covered, as in 1872, to- 

 day there is an area of only 1,750 by 10 feet covered, equal to 17,500 

 feet, oi' ground for 8,750 seals — bulls, cows, and pups — instead 30,750, 

 as in 1872. 



That parade ground up and over this breeding belt under the cliffs 

 at Tolstoi is wholly deserted by the holluschicMe. Not a shujlc animal 

 has hauled out there upon its grassy patehed surface th^is far, this 

 season. Out near the point, is that queer climbing path up the cliffs 

 from the sea to this ground. Here in 1872 I have sat for hours at a 

 time watching the seals come up and go down in ceaseless tiles of 

 hundreds and thousiinds, actually climbing up places so steep that it 

 was all an agile man could do to tbllow them safely. 



1 saw about 50 or (Jt) holluschickie on the cliflt" steps to this path 

 to day: but, none of them seem inclined to go up on to the old ]tarade 

 ground nbove. The natives call this particular locality "Bobrovia 

 yama," or the "sea otter cave." 



