142- FUK-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 



why do these young bachelors try to go upon the breeding grounds ? — 

 A. The instinctive desire of a young male is to propagate his species, 

 and he would commence when only two years of age if he could. 



Q. Tlie old bulls will not let them "? — A. No, sir. That is an explana- 

 tion of this "hauliug out." I am not ijrepared to say that they are 

 obliged to "haul out" to shed their coats, but they are obliged to " haul 

 out" to reproduce their kind. 



Q. Then you think it is absolutely necessary for the Government to 

 protect the herds in the open waters as well as on the rookeries ? — A. I 

 think it is absolutely necessary to prevent their molestation in the waters 

 of Bering Sea if you desire to preserve these rookeries. I think it 

 would also be an admirable project to include the waters of the North 

 Pacific, if it can be done, and I think it probably can be. 



Q. Do you think it is within our power to extend protection over 

 them in the waters of the North Pacific ? — A. I believe it would meet 

 with the entire approbation of the British Government, and as it and 

 Russia are the only great nations interested besides ourselves, if we se- 

 cure their permission, I do not think we would have any difficulty. 

 But we certainly can protect them in Bering Sea, and we should do so. 



Q. What is your idea of the number of seals that visit the Pribylov 

 group ? — A. My idea of the number of seals that visit these islands is 

 based upon a very elaborate system of surveys. I made these surveys 

 after looking over the grounds and satisfying myself that I could not 

 trust the estimates of man. One gentlemen said to me he thought 

 there were about 16,000,000 of them. Another gentleman was quite 

 sure there were not 2,000,000. I looked over the ground and I was 

 dumbfounded as I attempted to count the seals swarming on these 

 grounds ; therefore I set about forming some intelligent basis of enu- 

 meration, and getting some unit of calculation. I puzzled myself over 

 it many weeks, until I arrived at this discovery : I noticed in look- 

 ing over the breeding grounds under bluffs that they were never 

 crowded in there closer over a narrow space between the cliffs and sea 

 than they were over boundless space, where they have plenty of room 

 behind them 5 that they obeyed an iustiuctive natural law of distribu- 

 tion ; and that under no circumstances did thev crowd in any one place 

 closer than in another ; that no matter how large or how small the 

 breeding grounds were, just so many seals would always be found in 

 exact ratio to the area. Having discovered this, I had whati Avas seek- 

 ing — the basis for an intelligent calculation. 



Then I set about making a survey of these different rookeries, and 

 fixing with my azimuth compass and tape line an outline of the ground 

 occupied, and measuring it after they left. It was easy to do that. On 

 finding how much ground a seal occupied, and how many square feet an 

 animal took, I had the basis for a fair calculation. I could quite safely 

 calculate upon an average of 2 square feet to every animal, big and 

 little, on the grounds. 1 made, as you have seen in my census mono- 

 graph of the seal islands, a grand total of breeding seals and young on 

 St. Paul Island in 1874 of 3,030,000. 



Eight here let me say that I think that on those breeding grounds a 

 fair average of twelve or fifteen cows to one bull will be made. You 

 will see families where there are double that number of cows, and you 

 will see other families where there are not half that number, but a fair 

 average is twelve to fifteen cows to one male. 



On St. George Island the rookery ground is very mucb smaller, and 

 there are only 163,420 of these breeding seals and youn-, making a 



