52 THE FUR SEALS OF THE PRTBILOF ISLANDS. 



ample range, 1 cock suffices for 30 hens. So that, using domesticated animals as a 

 basis for comparison, we may say that 1 male to 30 females is well within the safety 

 limit. But these animals are naturally only polygamous to a comparatively small 

 extent, and the discrepancy in size between the sexes is slight, while the fur seal is 

 polygamous to a great degree by nature, the males are at least four times the bulk of 

 the females, and the necessary proportions of males to females is evidently nuich 

 smaller. Elliott figures 18 breeding females in a harem, and says that on the rookery 

 there are 15 to 20 females to 1 male, a number in practical accord with the average 

 derived from counting a very large number of harems, and this, with the doubling 

 now known to be needed, brings the number of cows up to 30 or 40.' Moreover, in 

 1890 the proportion of idle bulls was very great, there being 2,990 waiting bulls and 

 5,009 bulls with harems, so that in consequence the harems may be considered as 

 comprising the minimum number of cows. While 18 is an average number of cows 

 present in a harem at the height of the season, the proportion of cows to a bull varies 

 immensely, much depending on the location of the bull and his ability to hold his 

 station against all comers. During the season of 1890 there were many bulls which 

 were able to secure but a single cow, and many others which had only 3 or 4, while 

 some possessed as many as 50, and one, the greatest polyganiist of them all, had no less 

 than 135 rounded up at one time. This old fellow stood at the head of a broad gully 

 and at the foot of a slope on North rookery, St. George, and from his position he was 

 able to intercept all cows which sought to haul out on the hillside above, while from 

 his strength and prowess he was able to light off the bulls back of him. The number 

 of cows was, however, too great for him to control throughout the season, and later 

 on the waiting bulls in the vicinity and those with smaller harems took possession of 

 part of the seraglio. A similar iinnuinse harem was formed on Gorbatch early in tlie 

 season of 1897 by a bull who commanded the passage leading from a section of the 

 beach to the slope above, and this, too, later on resolved itself into a number of 

 smaller harems. 



The landing of the cows is to a great degree influenced by the character of the 

 shore, shelving rocks, gnllies running conveniently inland, or little openings among 

 large bowlders, determining the spots where the females will come on shore. Thus, a 

 readily accessible gully on the eastern end of tiie amphitheater of Kitovi is the 

 natural inlet to that portion of the rookery, and up this come the cows to form the 

 harems, while on the western side access is over sloping rocks. Once two or three 

 cows have located themselves, others follow the gregarious instincts of the seals, thus 

 leading to disproportionately large harems in favored localities.' 



Thus the condition of the harems is largely influenced by, if it does not depend 

 entirely on, the lay of the land. Also, where a rookery can be more or less 

 indefinitely extended inland, as back of Polovina, or on tiie hillside at Staraya Artel 

 and Zai)adni, there is room for all idle bulls to accumulate at the rear; where a lookery 

 is so hemmed in by a cliflf as to be incapable of extension backward there are few 



'In 1895 Mr. True counted on Kitovi, between July 8 and 10, 2,610 cows in 153 liarenis, an average 

 of a little over 17 to a harem. In 1896 Dr. Stejnogor and myself, on July 13, counted on the satiie 

 ground 3,152 cows in 182 harems, again a little over 17 to a liarem. In 1895 on the southern part of 

 Tolstoi there were on July 11, 1,624 cows in 107 harems, and in 1896, on .July 14, 1,498 cows in 

 108 harems, or respectively about 15 and 14 to a harem. On the above-mentioned rookeries, and 

 particularly on Tolstoi, it is possible to count the individuals with great accuracy. 



^For note on the lauding of cows see Part II, p. 523 and after. 



