74 



FUE-SEAL HEED OF ALASKA. 



the other rookeries, barring this exception here, we see the same 

 complete absence of young, virile male life. There is nothing of the 

 kind in view. Had there been the usual proportion, a hundred of 

 these young bulls would be lying outside, all accompanied by a few 

 cows, in every direction along the entire outer line of this fine rookery 

 massing — leading the way for the overflow next year. It is believed 

 by us, however, now, that by letting these creatures alone, as it is 

 proposed to do and as the law directs, within four years this massing 





will have overflowed the boundaries of to-day, and will have reached 

 those of 1890. This is the only rookery where this solid massing and 

 steady advance from that massing out, is in actual evidence, and will 

 be an interesting study to observe its increase during the next four 

 years. It is in fine shape to-day for making an accurate comparison 

 with what it shall increase up to ^^^thin the next four or fn^e years. 



To recapitulate: For Starry Arteel rookery,^ July 18, 1913, we find 

 80 bulls, 4,500 cows, 4,200 pups. Season of 1S90 there were 220 

 bulls, 8,000 cows, 7,500 pups; season of 1874,^ 975 bulls, 15,250 cows, 

 14,250 pups. 



1 This is the place, just to the eastward of Gulls Pool, and on those low slopes of the bluffs which rise 

 there from the sea, where Pribilof pitched his first camp on this island after he discovered it in June, 1786. 

 "Starry Arteel," or "Old Settlement." 



2 Starry Arteel as it was in 1S74 (p. 51, H. Doc. No. 175, 54th Cong., 1st sess.): 



"This rookery is the next in order and it is the most remarkable one on St. George Island, lying as it 

 does in a bold sweep from the sea up a steeply inclined slope to a point where the blufls bordering it seaward 

 are over 400 feet high, the seals being just as closely crowded at the summit of this lofty breeding plat as 

 they are at the water's edge. The whole oblong oval on the side hill is covered by their thickly crowded 

 forms. It is a strange sight, also, to sail under these blufls with a boat in fair weather for a landing, and 

 as you walk the beach over which the cliff wall frowns a sheer 500 feet there, directly over your head, the 

 craning necks and twisting forms of the restless seals ever and anon as you glance upward appear as if 

 ready to launch out and fall below, so closely and boldly do they press to the very edge of the precipice." 



