30 SEAL LIFE ON THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 



On Zapacluie (St. George Island) a cross marks the extreme western 

 end of the rookery. 



It seems advisable to have these artificial landmarks extended to 

 some of the other rookeries and located on their respective charts. 



Photographic Station G, on Polavina, was marked F by mistake and 

 shonld be corrected. 



Photographic Station 5, on Northeast Point, was appropriately 

 marked. 



CONDITION OF ROOKERIES IN 1895 AS SHOWN BY CHARTS AND 



PHOTOGRAPHS. 



The changes that have taken i)lace in the rookeries since July, 1894, 

 are so marked that their depleted condition in July, 1895, is in general 

 apparent upon comparison of the charts and photographs covering the 

 two seasons. The usual luimber of seals not having appeared at the 

 customary time of commenciug the photographic work, the latter was 

 purposely delayed in order that the ground might have ample time to 

 fill up, the dates at which the photograi)hs were made being mostly a 

 week later than in 1894. Even after the slight spreading of the breed- 

 ing seals that takes place as the season advances, the grounds were 

 not at any time during 1895 occupied by their usual numbers of seals. 

 Kookeries, or breeding grounds, strictly speaking, are the tracts within 

 the limits of which young seals are brought forth, being perfectly dis- 

 tinct areas as contrasted with those over which they spread of their 

 own accord somewhat later. The "s])reading" which results from the 

 swelling of the rookeries by the birth of tliousands of young was 

 scarcely perceptible during the season of 1895, the limited number of 

 adults on the rookeries making it unnecessary for the animals to scat- 

 ter to the usual <listauces from the beaches. Many old breeding males 

 occupied their former jiositions in the rear of the rookeries, but remained 

 alone, or with but two or three females during the seascm, their harems 

 having been absorbed by harems nearer the beach and not permitted 

 to pass back. Many of the branches of rookeries formerly extending 

 well back of the breeding grounds at favorable points where the seals 

 lie in masses have this year been absorbed into the main body of breed- 

 ing seals. These changes are shown in the photographs of some of the 

 rookeries and are reju'esented on the charts. In many narrow rookeries 

 stretched along beaches where the number of seals is not great, changes 

 caused by a decrease in seal life are not of such a character as to be 

 api)arent in i)hotographs until actual breaks occur. All such rookeries 

 confined to narrow beach slopes are now thinned out to tlie verge of 

 breaking apart in many places. They no longer overlap on to the level 

 ground usually found above the slojies, and the surplus of male seals 

 derived from their adjacent hauling grounds is no longer of any impor- 

 tance. Breaks which occur in rookeries are always carefully noted, as 

 they are sure indications of decrease in the seal life of rookeries here- 

 tofore continuous. Certain thin sections as observed in 1894 indicated 

 breaks likely to follow further decrease in seal life. As a result of the 

 heavy loss of female and young seals caused by pelagic sealing in Bering 

 Sea in 1894, many of the predicted breaks actually occurred in 1895. 

 The destruction of a nuich larger number of females and young, through 

 the operations of the sealing fleet in Bering Sea in 1895, will cause a 

 reduction in the class of breeding seals next season, amounting practi- 

 cally to the loss of continuity in all the thin rookeries on the islands 

 and rendering the business of pelagic sealing unprofitable. 



