THE COUNT OF NORTH EOOKERY. 549 



doubtless other harems will be formed. It is not likely that the season has reached 

 its height as yet. There are no seals on the little flat near here which was photo- 

 graphed last August for dead pups. A large harem is located below it and a harem 

 of 2 cows is above it. The cows do not reach the mouth of the slide on Ardiguen, 

 All the large groups on the Reef are growing rapidly and pushing inland. 



Under the clifi's at Lukauiu I counted a section of harems along the beach as 

 follows: 40, 24, 29, 31, 29, 24, 30, 39, 4G, 22, 48— cows. Among and in the rear of these 

 were harems as follows: 3, 6, 2, 3, 4, 8, 10, 4, 1. These latter harems (except, perhaps, 

 the 8 and 10) have all been stolen from the former. On the Amphitheater the harem 

 noted as having 82 cows yesterday now has 90. Thirty-five harems have all the cows 

 on the Amphitheater. There are 12 idle bulls. 



The Amphitheater has 585 cows to-day. Lukanin rookery has 1,531. 



A bull stole a cow and was carrying her to his harem when an idle bull attacked 

 him, pulling him down the slope by his hind flipper. He then seized the cow by the 

 neck, and the two bulls pulled and sawed over the cow until it seemed she must come 

 to pieces. Finally both bulls dropped her and went to fighting one another. The cow 

 lay motionless for several moments, neither bull paying any attention to her after 

 settling their differences. After a time she got up and hobbled slowly off to her harem. 

 It is in this way that many of the cows found dead on the rookeries are killed. 



A cow took up a place with a young bull on a sloping rocky shelf at the foot of 

 the Amphitheater. The space was scarcely big enough for the bull to lie on, and sloped 

 off toward the edge of the cliff, dropping sheer 20 feet down to the water. She had her 

 I)up, and a second cow was with her yesterday. To-day the bull and 1 cow are up on 

 the flat above. The cow and pup are gone. Below the cliff a young bull is trying to 

 copulate with something which proves to be the pup. It has fallen over the cliff" and 

 been caught in the rocks where the young bull found it. The pup squirms away. He 

 picks it up in its mouth and tries to put it on a flat rock, but before he can get up the 

 pup wriggles off". He bites the pup severely and has torn it in several places. When 

 he lifts the little fellow up in his mouth, though only a day or two old, it bites him in 

 the cheek and clings to his neck. Ee will undoubtedly crush the pup, and if he does 

 not the rising tide will soon drown it, 



MB. LUCAS'S NOTES. 



A bull with 1 cow lies to the east of Forth rookery under the cliff. Another similar 

 harem lies close to the passageway leading to the hauling ground. A harem was in 

 almost the same spot last year. There are 150 to 200 bachelors on the hauling ground ; 

 some are large, but many small. The proportion of large ones is not so great as that 

 on St. Paul. There are practically no seals swimming in the water off the rookery front. 



On account of the slope of the rookery the section which could not be counted last 

 year can not be counted this year without too great disturbance. If there is a drive 

 we will recount this first section. The idle bulls do not appear so numerous as they 

 were last year and the rookery seems to have shrunk some, so that it is now possible 

 to approach and count portions which were estimated last year on a basis of the 

 average number of cows in a harem. 



There were 175 harems which could be counted for cows, giving 2,400; in addition 

 there were 21 harems which could only be estimated. On the basis of those counted 

 this would give for the 196 harems on North rookery 2,703 cows. 



