48 FUE-SEAL HERD OF ALASKA. 



Passing from jag B, we now proceed southward to jag C of the 1890 

 survey. We find here that the seal life has entirely disappeared, save 

 at the foot of jag C, where we observe carefully about 1,500 cows and 

 count 50 bulls. In between jag B and jag C of the 1890 survey we 

 find some 1,500 holluschickie, chiefly yearlings, with 2-year-olds and 

 a few 3 -year-olds. 



We now proceed from this location across to jag D of the 1890 

 survey. Here we find the entire breeding area of 1890 is completely 

 abandoned, and, as we go to jag E, that area also is abandoned, save 

 a fringe of 7 or 8 ragged harems, with 15 or 20 bulls and about 300 

 cows. 



From thence we proceed around to jag F, and at the foot of that 

 seal-breeding record of 1890 is a massing of some 1,250 to 1,500 cows 

 and about 45 or 50 bulls. Between these breeding seals of E and F 

 were hauled out about 1,200 or 1,400 holluschickie. This entire 

 area between F and E, which was occupied in 1890 by breeding seals, 

 has been completely abandoned by them, with the exceptions 

 above noted. Grass, flowers, and lichens cover all this ground and 

 the rocks right down to the water's edge. 



From jag F we now proceed to jag G and jag H, at Zapadni Point, 

 and we find that the life of 1890 has faded out to about 2,000 cows 

 and about 60 bulls, all being right at the surf margin, as usual; and 

 running out to the point and under the drop we find seven or eight 

 ragged harems, or in all it makes an aggregate grouping of about 

 2,000 cows and 60 bulls, which we consider a very liberal estimate of 

 this life that survives between jag G and the Point. A single poise- 

 catch, the first seen to-day in the rear, was noticed by us. Three 

 or four 6-year-old bulls constitute the entire surplus bull life at this 

 point of the finish of our survey of Lower Zapadni. 



Recajntulation. — As we finish this survey of the breeding life on 

 Zapadni in contrast with its condition of 1890, and before we close 

 these notes, with the chart of 1874 under our eyes, we are impressed 

 with the fact that the herd of 1874, in its dwindling to its condition 

 of 1890, was decimated fully two-thirds; but the decrease since 1890 

 to the present hour shows a loss of nearly nine-tenths of the figures 

 of 1890. Great as that loss was in 1890, from the figures of 1874, it 

 is impossible not to be impressed with the still greater decline up to 

 date. 



During this survey, and indeed, for that matter, since we began 

 this work, we have taken notice of the Coast and Geodetic Survey's 

 series of painted rocks as they stand here to-day, which those engi- 

 neers marked and numbered in 1897 to declare the outer limits of that 

 hauling of breeding seals during that season; we have noted that they 

 closely foUow the lines of Elliott's 1890 survey. These white-num- 

 bered records made of seal hauling on the rocks in 1897 show that 

 even then the high-water points touched by the seals in 1890 were not 

 much receded from. It would seem from the record of this Coast 

 Survey's making that the diminution since 1897 was far more marked 

 than that wliich took place between 1890 and 1874; it is unnecessary 

 to say that the immense shrinkage from 1890 to date is emphatically 

 and indisputably confirmed by this painted-rock record of the Coast 

 and Geodetic Survey. The hauling grounds of Zapadni where the 

 holluschickie swarmed in 1874 on this magnificent plateau were not, 



