294 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



boundaries of tnie breeding limit and expansion by the 25th to the 

 28th of July every year ; then, after this date, the pups begin to 

 haul back, and to the right and left, in small squads at first, but as 

 the season goes on, by the 18th of August, they depart without ref- 

 erence to their mothers ; and when thv;s scattered, the males, fe- 

 niales and young swarm over more than three and four times the 

 area occupied by them when breeding and born on the rookeries. 

 The system of family arrangement and uniform compactness of the 

 breeding classes breaks up at this date. 



Ninth. — That by the 8th or 10th of August the pups born near- 

 est the water first begin to learn to swim ; and that by the IStli or 

 20th of September they are all familiar, more or less, with the ex- 

 ercise. 



Tenth. — That by the middle of September the rookeries are en- 

 tirely broken up ; confused, straggling bands of females are seen 

 among bachelors, pujDS, and small squads of old males, crossing and 

 recrossing the ground in an aimless, listless manner. The season 

 is now over. 



Eleventh. — That many of the seals do not leave these grounds of 

 St. Paul and St. George before the end of December, and some re- 

 main even as late as the 12th of January ; but that by the end of 

 October and the beginning of November every year, all the fur- 

 seals of mature age — five and six years, and upward — have left the 

 islands. The younger males go with the others ; many of the pups 

 still range about the islands, but are not hauled to any great extent 

 on the beaches or the flats. They seem to prefer the rocky shore- 

 margin, and to lie as high up as they can get on such bluffy rook- 

 eries as Tolstoi and the Reef. By the end of this month, Novem- 

 ber, they are, as a rule, all gone. 



I now call the attention of the reader to another very remark- 

 able feature in the economy of the seal-life on these islands. The 

 great herds of " holluschickie,"* numbering from one-third to one- 

 half, perhaps, of the whole aggregate of near five million seals 

 known to the Pribylov group, are never allowed by the old " see- 

 catchie " (which threaten frightful mutilation or death) to put 

 their flippers on or near the rookeries. 



By reference to my map, it will be observed that I have located 



* The Russian term " liolluscliickie" or "bachelors" is very appropriate, 

 and is usually employed. 



