ESTIMATES OF NUMBER OF FUR SEALS. 77 
put upon its results. The parts of rookeries which can be counted to-day are so 
circumscribed by cliffs and the narrowness of the beaches that to make.a count of 
them, even at the time of the greatest density of their population, would have been 
but little more difficult than it is to-day. More seals were present on a given area, 
but the area was no greater. The counting of these areas would of course not have 
relieved the difficulty as to a complete census; but a definite and exact enumeration, 
even of so small and accessible a breeding ground as Spilki, in 1874, could not have 
failed to clear up many of the problems which have tended to increase the confusion 
in past conditions. 
EARLY ESTIMATES. 
In considering the various estimates of earlier times, we purposely pass over that 
of Bishop Veniaminof. It is too vague and unsatisfactory to be of any value. It 
is, moreover, a prophecy of future results, based on assumed premises, rather than a 
measure of actual conditions, Furthermore, it was made at a time (about 1834) when, 
as we know, the herd had reached from some cause or other a state of approximate 
annihilation. 
CAPTAIN BRYANT’S ESTIMATE. 
After the islands came into the possession of the United States the first attempt 
to reach an estimate of the number of seals was made by Capt. Charles Bryant, agent 
of the Government, sent in 1869 to investigate the condition of the herd. Captain 
Bryant sums up his method of enumeration as follows:! 
There are at least 12 miles of shore line on the island of St. Paul occupied by the seals as 
breeding grounds, with the average width of 15 rods. There being about twenty seals to the square 
rod, gives 1,152,000 as the whole number of breeding males and females. Deducting one-tenth for 
males leaves 1,037,800 breeding females. : 
He estimates the number of seals on St. George at one-half the number on St. 
Paul. He further makes a rough estimate of the number of nonbreeding males, but 
he does not work itoutor give a total. In comparing the estimate of Captain Bryant 
with the subsequent estimate of Mr. Elliott it must be noted that the young are not 
included. 
THE FIRST ACREAGE ENUMERATION. 
This estimate is crude both in its methods and in its results, but it certainly 
contains the germ of all subsequent acreage estimates of the seals. It was made and 
its results were published at least two years before the work of Mr. Elliott, which 
was begun in1872. Whatever credit, therefore, belongs to the invention and execution 
of this method of arriving at the population of the rookeries must rest with Captain 
Bryant. His enumeration, though but a rough approximation, and probably so 
considered by him, brought for the first time the fur-seal herd within the range of a 
numerical estimate. 
ELLIOTT’S ESTIMATE OF 1872-1874. 
The next attempt at enumeration was made in 1872-1874 by Henry W. Elliott, 
special agent sent by the United States Treasury Department to investigate the con- 
dition of the herd. He followed the same general method inaugurated by Captain 
1 Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 1870, Vol. II, p. 106. 
