386 TESTIMONY 



of the females. If 100 bulls represented the necessary supply of virile 

 males we might, by reasou of this fact, hud 10 bulls with very large 

 harems, 10 with still less, 50 with a reasonable number, 20 with a few, 

 and 10 with none. An onlooker would not, therefore, be justified in 

 stating that by reason of these few large harems there is a lack of vir- 

 ile males. 



In the very nature of things it seems impossible that any method 

 other than this one of selection on the part of the female could ever 

 have existed. 



Large harems are frequently due to topographic conditions, the con- 

 figuration of the land being such that the females can only reach the 

 breeding grounds through narrow passage ways between the rocks and 

 around the terminations of which they collect. 



Harems often coalesce; then boundaries become indefinite, and when 

 their size and position make them too large for control cows pass to the 

 rear and are appropriated by the bulls there. 



When once the female is located, the bull exercises rigid control and 

 permits no leaving of the land until she has been served. I never saw 

 a harem so large that the vigilance of the bull in this respect was ever 

 relaxed. His consorts may escape to another harem, but they are 

 never permitted to go to sea until an inspection convinces the bull that 

 they are eutitled to do so. No intelligent observer would be so bold as 

 to assert that during the season of 1892 there was not an abundance of 

 males of competent virility, despite the occurrence of occasional large 

 harems. The accompanying photographs 1 show that even at the 

 height of the season, and just previous to the disintegration of the 

 breeding grounds, there were, unsupplied with cows, old males which 

 had taken their stand and from which I was unable to drive them with 

 stones. 



I should have been extremely glad to have been able to note a great 

 many more of these large harems, but the work of the pelagic hunter 

 among the females has beeu so effective that the average size of the 

 harems is growing smaller and smaller, while the number of idle bulls 

 is steadily increasing. The rookeries of the Pribilof Islands will never 

 be destroyed by a superabundance of large harems. 



I arrived on the islands this year a few days after the coming of 

 Females and their the first cows, and by selecting a small harem composed 

 movements. f se als the arrival of which I had seen, and giving it 



daily observation, I was able to satisfy myself that females begin to 

 go into the water from 14 to 17 days after first landing. On first en- 

 tering the sea they make a straight line for the outer waters, and as far 

 as the eye can follow them they seem still to be travelling. The first 

 cows to arrive are the first to depart in search of food, and by the first 

 week in July the cows are coining and going with such frequency as to 

 be readily seen at any time. The accompanying photograph (taken on 

 July 8,1892, from the same position as, but one day earlier than, the one 

 of last year which faces page 13 of Vol. II of the Case) shows pups the 

 mothers of which are already at sea. [Photograph faces p. 385]. 



The fact that the coat of the cow assumes, from residence on the 

 shore, a rusty or sunburnt aspect, gives a ready means of observing her 

 movements. The rustiness is quickly lost by life in the sea. 



The movements of females can also to a certain extent be well ob- 

 served by their appearance after giving birth to their pups, after fast- 



l The United States will lay before the Tribunal a series of photographs taken by 

 Mr. Stanley-Brown timing the seasons of 1891 and 1892, in illustration of seal life 

 in general upon the Pribilof Islands. 



