FUR SEALS AND OTHER LIFE, PRIBILOF ISLANDS, I914. 51 



of events brings the younger animals to the less advantageous positions. The older 

 bulls as a class are doubtless stronger and better fighters than their juniors, but their 

 success in all cases may not be due to this so much as to their early arrival and their 

 predilection for places previously occupied. The young bull seeking his first harem is 

 guided mainly by an instinct to secure some sort of a position on the breeding ground 

 and wait for cows to come to him. Arriving a little late, he finds most of the good 

 positions occupied, and unless he stumbles into a place vacant through the death of its 

 previous occupant, he is content to take a relatively poor position and guard it as hope- 

 fully as if it were the best. Late in the season he discovers his error and attempts to get 

 cows wherever he can find them. The old bull, on the other hand, comes early and seeks 

 the place occupied the previous year or a similar one and is not satisfied with any other. 

 This, with the exception of circumstances, is the general procedure which operates to 

 make the idle bulls as a class relatively young. 



Certain of the idle bulls are as tenacious of their positions as the harem bulls are 

 and will charge at a man who comes near them with just as much ferocity and determina- 

 tion; others will roar at a man and grudgingly give ground as he approaches, perhaps 

 finall}' retreating to the water and sitting partly submerged while they continue to 

 puff and glower; still others take fright at sight of a man and rush pell-mell to the sea 

 and swim off. Especially to this last class the term "quitter" has been applied and an 

 attempt has sometimes been made to distinguish "quitters" and idle bulls. As observed 

 in 1 91 4, there was every gradation from the undoubted "quitter" to the determined 

 idle bull, and a large number were neither the one nor the other. Moreover, some of the 

 most timid quitters were found continually returning to their positions and in some 

 cases their demeanor changed as the season advanced, while a few of them actually 

 obtained harems. It was evident that all such bulls were ready to secure harems and 

 competent to care for them whenever opportunity permitted. Their enumeration as 

 idle bulls, therefore, was fully justified. 



Other bulls, apparently at least 6 years of age, were irregular in their movements, some 

 being on the hauling grounds, some in the bachelor runways and at the extreme ends of 

 the rookeries, while at all times an indeterminate number were in the water, appearing 

 and reappearing along the rookery fronts to haunt and harass the harem masters nearest 

 the sea. Such bulls can not be fully enumerated and, though doubtless quite as effective 

 reserves as the idle bulls in fixed positions, they can only be taken into account collect- 

 ively with the "young bulls" or half -bulls, all of which are never on land at one time. 

 With these exceptions, the "young bulls" consist of the 5-year-olds, the majority of 

 which spend the early part of the season with the young bachelors. Toward the height 

 of the season they are seen in increasing numbers about the rookery fronts, and at the 

 first sign of relaxation of harem discipline they swarm over the breeding area. As the 

 exodus of old bulls progresses the idle bulls and the smaller half-bulls practically take 

 possession of the breeding ground. At this time the virgin cows appear in greatest 

 numbers and it is assumed that they are largely served by these idle and young bulls. 

 The young bulls, half-bulls, or 5-year-olds, are wholly unable to cope with the idle 

 bulls, and, although in 1914 they occupied most of the space after the break-up, it is 

 plain that they would not have been permitted to do so had a larger number of idle 

 bulls been present. 



