154 FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 



July 10, 1990. — Made a oareful survey of the area and position of the 

 bi'eedina: seals on Tolstoi this dav in company with ^Ir, Charles .1. (lOli". 



* * "^ In Jnly (U).lS7i\ this Tolstoi rookery held L'l!:),000 bulls, 

 cows, and pups. A startling" decrease of nearly three-tourths or I'l per 

 c«ur loss here since 1871.*, or of 162,G(X) seals ! 



ZAPADNIE. 



June lo, 1S90. — I think the hulls on Lower Zapadnie show the thin- 

 nest in distribution. Certainly this great rookery, which swarmed with 

 rousing, tighting bulls, elosely massed over all the breeding space 

 mapped out on this ground at this time in 1872, is in a great decline. 

 The few bulls that are here, are hauled out so widely and so far from 

 the water — in places they are l.OtH) feet. I think they act as though 

 they were anticipating nothing. A few cows, perhaps four or tive, are 

 all that I saw this day here, and three on Upper Zapadnie. 



1 have fairly got this rough-surfaced rookery chartered to-day. It is 

 a queer place to view the seals. They lay in curious little valleys and 

 canyons which have been created by hot lava bubbles in prebio- 

 logical days. Rut that scant distribution of the bulls in these places 

 to day, puts me continually in mind of 



" Some banquet hall deserted, 

 Whose garlands dead, 

 And guests have ded. etc." 



Upper Zapadnie is equally thin on its hill slopes, and what is more, 

 the water's edge line is vacant at frequent intervals. There is an occa- 

 sional roar and some characteristic "spitting,'" huf noiiv of tliat dcsper- 

 atc, iix'fssont fi<iliti)i<i that jireraUcJ <f)}io)i(i the close]}/ thronjied huJh 

 on all these places in lS7i'. The rookeries to day. on this occasion of 

 the lirst arrival of the females, are positively quiet. The unbroken 

 U]»roar that boonunl night and day from them then in 1872, is not more 

 than faintly suggested by what 1 hear now. 



June j2(i, 1S90. — I have not seen nuich of Lower Zapadnie today — 

 only a running survey from the sand beach — while I had a tine view of 

 Upper Zapadnie and its beach extension. Upper Zapadnie shows the 

 sann^ decadence, but not so painfully marked, as Lower Zapadnie. The 

 beach extension, however, is reniarkably vacant, in so far as cows are 

 concerned. 



■inli/ .'), ISOO. — The hauling of the cows on Zapadnie to-day is extra- 

 oidinary in contrast with its a])pearance here in 1872 at this time, and 

 only a week from the hour of its utmost limit of expansion. Keally 1 

 can not see nuu-h increase since my notes last week. But, such rusty 

 cows, such somnolent stupid bulls: such an abnormal average as (H) to 

 7') COM s in the harems: while lots of sleeping bulls are all around, 

 though only some 40 to 5(» feet away from these harems, where the bulls 

 in charge, are so feeble that they refused the advances of eager cows 

 repeatedly under my eyes within less than twenty minutes alter I had 

 set a tixed watch on half a dozen right within my view and near by. 



Driving as it has been done has the deplorable elVect of wideu- 

 iug and scattering the already too wide and scattered distribution of 

 these breeding aninmls. I saw this result on the reef after it had been 

 swept on the 1st instant. The same extending vacancies on the water 

 line of this once great compact breeding gi'ound is ])lainly visible to-day. 

 Every littlepod of hollnschickiethat creepsin now behind a harem, laying 

 close u]) to it instinctively for shelter, is at once marked and swept out, 

 up and into the drives. This huddles the cows into larger and larger 

 masses, sweeps off and away the few surplus old males, and leaves the 



