RELATING TO FUR-SEALS AND SEALSKfN INDUSTRY. 393 



and have hunted with all kinds of firearms and under various condi- 

 tions. 1 have made seven voyages to Alaska. 



I visited the Pribilof Islands for the first time in 1885, spending the 

 months of June and September thereon in making collections of natural- 

 history specimens, including those of the fur-seal, of which I brought 

 down twenty. In the year 1891 I again visited the Island of St. Paul, 

 arriving there July 28th and remaining there about ten days. The 

 British Commissioners were on the Island at that time. I made frequent 

 observations as to the conditions of the rookeries during this period. 

 Early in the summer of 1892 I visited, at the request of the U. S. Gov- 

 ernment, Guadeloupe Island, for the purpose of acquainting myself 

 with seal life there and of obtaining skulls of the fur-seals which for- 

 merly frequented those regions. Later in 1892 I once more visited the 

 Island of St. Paul, arriving there June 30th. I was there on the Island 

 and on the U. S. Ee venue steamer Cone in, cruising to the west of the 

 Islands, continuously until about August 15th, and was engaged during 

 all of this time in the study of seal life either on land or in the waters 

 of Bering Sea, and have shot seals from a small boat. 



I carefully noted the fact this year that the young seal is at birth at- 

 tached to a large placenta, equal perhaps to one-third 

 of its wei ght and of a bright red color. It is sometimes Birth of pups - 

 not expelled until an hour or so after birth, remaining attached in the 

 meanwhile by the umbilical cord to the pup. It frequently remains 

 attached to the pup for a day or more. After parturition the female 

 takes an immediate interest in her young, and if it has fallen into some 

 slight rock crevice she gently draws it towards her, taking its nape in 

 her teeth. She repeatedly turns to it with manifestations of affection. 



Prior to July 27th, 1892, many of the females had taken to water to 

 feed and could thereafter be seen returning at all times 

 to suckle their young. I quote the following written Eeedin s females. 

 memorandum made by me at St. Paul on that date : " Bulls on rookeries 

 getting exhausted and quiet, mostly sleeping. Cows largely at sea. 

 Some bulls have hauled out on sand beaches that so far have been bare. 

 Four-fifths of the seals on rookeries to-day are pups." 



July 28th I made the following note: " Many females coming from 

 the water bleating for their young." 



I have killed sea-lions at the following localities, where they breed in 

 considerablenumbers, and found theirbreeding grounds 

 impregnated withthesame rank, disagreeable smell that Excrementitious 

 is so noticeable a feature of the breeding grounds of the 

 Pribilof fur-seal : Light-house Rock, Alaska Peninsula, Farallone Islands 

 and Monterey Rock, California, San Benito Islands, Lower California, 

 and San Luis Islands in the Gulf of California. 



The soil and rocks at these places is as foul with seal excrement as 

 at the Pribilofs, where urine, excrement, decaying placentas, and other 

 filth rubbed and trodden into the sod and rock depressions cause the 

 odors so characteristic of this viciniiy. The rocks at Monterey maybe 

 used in illustration : They lie near Cypress Point, four or five hundred 

 yards off the shore which the carriage drive follows, and are covered 

 with hair seals, which breed there. They are conspicuously stained 

 with excrement, and where the animals lie thickest the ground is 

 smeared and slippery with it. I collected sea-lions there in January of 

 the present year, and after my shooting had frightened all the animals 

 off to sea the rank smell of the place itself drifted across the channel 

 into the nostrils of the tourists of Hotel del Monte, who witnessed our 

 operations. It would indeed be an extraordinary occurrence if fur-seals 



