RELATING TO THE RUSSIAN SEAL ISLANDS. 199 



since sealing vessels had appeared, but that before the inroads of th<'so 

 seal hunters there was no trouble in obtaining tlie full quota of the 

 best grades of skins, as the herds had previous to that time been 

 noticeably increasing. 



The driving grounds on Copper Island are very rough and hilly and 

 much more difUcult to drive over than those on the ^^^.-^^.^j^^ 

 Pribilof Islands. The drives are always carefully "ving. 

 made, slow, with a cliance to rest, and foggy days are selected. I have 

 never been able to discover any injury to the herds from these drives, 

 nor do I believe there is any. The killable seals herd by themselves, 

 and until recently we did not drive from all the hauling grounds, but 

 this we have had to do in the last three or four years, because the seals 

 were getting scarce as the result of hunting them at sea. It is an act- 

 ual fact beyond dispute that female seals were much 

 more numerous on the islands in 1883 than they were fiom^isTrto 188^^^*^"'' 

 in 1870. The increase was gradual each year ami was 

 so marked that the natives often spoke of it to me, but from 1885, which 

 was about the time the sealers ai^peared in the waters, 

 the decrease in seal life was rapid and the natives com- siSeissV^^'' "^'^^"'^ 

 menced saying " no females," " no females," until now 

 we are confronted with depleted rookeries and probable extermination. 



John Malowansky, 



Subscribed and sworn to before me this 15th day of April, A. D. 1892. 

 [seal.] Clement Bennett, 



Notary Puhlic. 



Deposition of W. B. JirUlcr, assistant in scientific dejjartment of TJ. 8. 

 Fish- Commission steamer Albatross. 



ROOKERIES ON COMMANDER ISLANDS. 



N. B. Miller, an assistant in the scientific department of the Unit(Hl 

 States Fish-Commission steamer Albatross, heing duly 

 sworn, deposes and says: I visited the Eeef rookery ^"^venmce. 

 and Northeast Point rookery on St. Paul Island, Pribilofs, and 

 the Village rookery of St. George Island, Pribilofs, and took a number 

 of photographs on each. On June 1, 1892, 1 visited the North rookery of 

 Bering Island, Commander Islands, where I also took -n .■ „. t-i 

 a luimber of pliotograplis. This rookery is alow, tlat, acription ot^Nrotu 

 rocky reef extending from the base of a blufit" about 40 rookerjon. 

 feet high, seaward to a distance of about half a mile. The width along 

 the bluff is about IJ miles. It is composed of loose masses of rougli 

 volcanic rock from 1 to 15 feet above the high-water mark, with scat- 

 tered shallow pools of water between the rock piles. None of the rocks 

 appeared to be worn, as from the action of seal flippers, although I ex- 

 amined some of them with that idea in mind. There was no soil on 

 the breeding space of the rookery, which occupies the greater portion 

 of the wedge-shaped j)oint. The higher masses of rock are mostly at 

 the outer end, the rookery being lower towards the bluff. About the 

 center of it, near the bluff, are three or four shallow lagoons or pools of 

 small extent. The west arm of the rookery is a long and compara- 

 tively smooth saiul beacli, with but few rocks on it, over which the 

 bachelors are said to haul. Between the nearest lagoon, about 50 yards 



