42 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



roacliing " funk". This has been, by all writers who have dwelt on the subject, referred to as the smell which these 

 animals emit lor another reason — erroneously called the "rutting odor". If these creatures have auy odor i)eculiar 

 to them when in this condition, 1 will frankly confess that I am unable to distinguish it from the fumes which are 

 constantly being stirred up and rising out of those decaying carcasses of the older seals, as well as from (he 

 bodies of the few pups which have been killed accidentally by the heavy btills fighting over them, charging back 

 and forth against one another, so much of the time. 



They have, however, a very characteristic and peculiar smell, when they are driven and get heated ; their 

 breath exhalations possess a disagreeable, faint, sickly odor, and when I have walked within its influence at the 

 rear of a seal drive, I could almost fancy, as it entered my nostrils, that I stood beneath an ailanthus tree in bloom ; 

 but this odor can by no means be confounded with what is universally ascribed to another cause. It is also 

 noteworthy, that if your finger is touched ever so lightly to a little fur-seal blubber, it will smell very much like that 

 which I have appreciated and described as peculiar to their breath, which arises from them when they are driven, 

 only it is a little stronger. Both tlie young and old fur-.seals have this same breath-taint at all seasons of the year. 



Review of statements cokceening life in the eookeries. — To recapitulate and sum up the system 

 and regular method of life and reproduction on these rookeries of St. Paul and St. George, as the seals seem to 

 have arranged it, I shall say that — 



First. The earliest bulls land in a negligent, indolent way, at the opening of the season, soon after the rocks at 

 the water's edge are free from ice, frozen snow, etc. This is, as a rule, about the 1 st to the .jth of every May. They 

 land from the beginning to the end of the season in perfect confidence and without fear; they are very fat, and will 

 weigh at an average 500 pounds each ; some stay at the water's edge, some go to the tier back of them again, and 

 so on until the whole rookery is mapped out by them, weeks in advance of the arrival of the first female. 



Second. That by the lOth or 12th of June, all the male stations on the rookeries have been mapped out and 

 fought foi', and held in waiting by the " see-catchie". These males are, as a rule, bulls rarely ever under six years of 

 age; most of them are over that age, being sometimes three, and occasionally doubtless four, times as old. 



Third. That the cows make their first appearance, as a class, on or after the 12th or loth of June, in very small 

 numbers; but rapidly after the 2;3d and 25th of this month, every year, they begin to flock up in such numbers as 

 to fill Ihe harems very perceptibly; and by the 8th or 10th of July, they have all come, as a rule — a few sti'agglers 

 excepted. The average weight of the females now will not be much more than SO to 90 pounds each. 



Fourth. That the breeding-season is at its height from the lOth to the 15th of July every year, and that it 

 subsides entirely at the end of this month and early in August: also, that its method and system are confined 

 entirely to the land, never effected in the sea. 



Fifth. That the females bear their first young when they are three years old, and that the period of gestation 

 is nearly twelve months, lacking a few days only of that lapse of tinje. 



Sixth. That the females bear a single pup each, and that this is born soon after landing ; no exception to this 

 rule has ever been witnessed or recorded. 



Seventh. That the "see-catchie" which have held the harems from the beginning to the end of the season, 

 leave for the water in a desultory and straggling manner at its close, greatly emaciated, and do not return, if they 

 do at all, until six or seven weeks have elapsed, when the regular systematic distribution of the families over the 

 rookeries is at an end for this season. A general medley of young males now are free, which come out of the 

 water, and wander over all these rookeries, together with many old males, which have not been on seraglio duty, 

 and great numbers of the females. An immense majority over all others present are pups, since only about 25 per 

 cent, of the mother-seals are out of the water now at any one time. 



Eighth. That the rookeries lose their compactness and definite boundaries of true 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 reference to 

 their mothers ; and when thus scattered, the males, females, and young swarm over more than three and four times 

 the area occupied by them when breeding and born on the lookeries. The system of family arrangement and 

 uniform compactness of the breeding classes breaks up at this date. 



Ninth. That by the 8th or lOth of August the pups born nearest the water first begin to learn to swim ; and that 

 by the 15th or 20th of Sei)tember thej* are all familiar, more or less, with the exercise. 



Tenth. That by the middle of September the rookeries are entirely broken up; confused, straggling bands of 

 females are seen among bachelors, pups, and small squads of old males, crossing and recrossing the ground in an 

 aimless, listless manner. The season now is 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 remain even as late as the 12th of January; bnt 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 pnps 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 blufly rookeries as Tolstoi and Ihe Eeef. By the end of this mouth, November, they are, as a rule, 

 all gone. 



