APPENDIX TO COUNTER-CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 505 



on a considerable area, leaving the groniul perfectly bare. As these young male 

 seals cliangc their hauliiig-gromuls many times during the season, a considerable 

 extent of new gronnd is bared by them every year, and, though seals may not for 

 many seasons haul-out at this phice again, it will, in time, become covered with 

 Gli/ccihi aiifiHslatu, and cannot then be distiuguislied from similar areas on wliieh 

 seals had been many years before, for, when ground is once taken possession of by 

 this grass, it seejus to exclude all other plants with the exception of Desckampsia 

 cwspitosa and a large Artimisia. 



When on the islands I was again. and again told that the yellow grass marked the 

 limit to -which seals had reached. Admitting this to be true, there is no way of 

 determining what proportion of this ground has been occupied by seals at one time. 

 The lichen-coveied rocks prove that much of it has been deserted by them for many 

 years, while there are other parts of it that exhibit unmistakable evidence that seals 

 liave been on it within .-i few years; and in yet other cases seals were seen in great 

 numbers in 1891 and 1S92 hanled-out to the extreme edge of the ground defined by 

 yellow grass, and in not a few instances a long way beyond it. 



When tlie rookeries on St. Paul Island were last visited in September, it was. 



151 found tliat at all the larger rookeries, such as Reef, Tolstoi, and Polaviua, the 



seals had hauled-ont as far as there was any signs of their ever having been 



before, and in many cases much farther; photograijhs showing this were taken at all 



the principal rookeries. 



Comparative Numbers of Seals on the Priit/loff Islands in 1891 and 1892. 



In 1891 I arrived on St. Paul Island in company with the British Commissioners, 

 and first visited the rookeries there on the 28th July. Long before that date, in 1892, 

 I was, trusting to my memory alone, thoroughly convinced that there were more seals 

 on the rookeries and hauliug-grounds of that island than there were in 1891, and a 

 eoniparison of photographs taken in that year with those i)rocured in 1892 proves 

 that my memory was not at fault. Apart from this, however, the rookery and hauling- 

 groimds themselves exhibited unmistakable evidence that the number of seals was 

 greater in 1892 tlian 1891. At Zapadnio, Tolstoi, Reef, and North-east rookeries any 

 increase or decrease in the size of the rookeries can at once be determined by the 

 appearance ot the ground that marks their limits. Tliere is never any dilhculty in 

 distinguishing ground on which seals have been in the previous year from that which 

 has not been occupied by them within two or more years. The first year after seals 

 have been on any ])articu]ar area the ground remains hard and smooth, and it is seldom 

 that even a lew blades of grass show themselves. The rains of one summer and the 

 frosts of two winters do much to loosen the soil, and in the second year its surface 

 presents quite a different ai)pearance. 



Before the end of August nearly all the rookery -ground that bore evidence of having 

 been occupied by seals the previous season was agaiu covered by them. At North- 

 east Point in particular, it was easy to see that there had been a nuiterial increase 

 in the number of breeding seals. Last year, the extreme limit to which seals reached 

 at Hutchinson Hill was the crest of the hill, but in 1892 its summit was, late in 

 August, covered with female seals and jinps. They extended back so far that the 

 shelter for the watchmen, built some years ago on this hill, could not be reached or 

 occupied without disturbing the seals. Standing at Sea-Lion Neck on the 22nd 

 July, and looking north over the immense rookery that covers that part of North- 

 east Point, Mr. Miller, who was engaged in taking photographs for the United States 

 Government, said to me that there were more seals there than there had been when 

 he photographed the same ground about a week later in 1891. 



At Reef rookery, in 1891, the breeding-seals reached in a scattering way, in August, 

 almost to the ledge of rocks that separates the breeding- and hauliug-grounds on 

 the south side of Reef Point, from what Elliott calls the "parade ground." In 1892 

 breeding-seals reached quite to this ledge, and late in August females and young 

 had in small numbers climl)ed up the rocks, and were scattered for some little dis- 

 tance beyond them. At the south-west point of this rookery the breeding seals 

 were, from the first of the season, hauled out in great numbers close up to the rocks 

 that separate it from the " parade ground." This area is not included by Elliott in 

 his Map of Reef rookery, showing the ground occupied by breeding seals in 1874. 



(^n the 11th August, at Lukanuou and Ketavie rookeries, it was noticed that while 

 all bare gronnd had seals scattered over it, the breeding seals had covered so much 

 new" grouiul that it was impossible to reach the stone cairns, or " myaks," from which 

 photographs had been taken earlier in the season, and which had been eret-ted in 

 3891 uud(a- Mr. Brown's directions, to mark the limit to which seals had ever reached. 



At Zai)a(luie rookery it was impossible to tell whether the breeding seals had 

 increased or decreased, as the holluschickie on all parts of that rookery are hauled 

 out between the breeding seals and the outer edge of the hanling-grounds, the breed- 

 ing seals lying between them and the water. 



