ALASKA. 109 



have beeu otherwise -with any kind of animals — even cattle 

 would have been exterminated ; because a great many here 

 think and count that the seal-mother brings forth her young in 

 her third year, i. e., the next two years after her own birth. As 

 it is well shown here, the spared seals ("zapooskie") were not more 

 than three years old, and therefore it was not possible to dis- 

 cern the correct or true numbers as they really were. Taking the 

 females killed by the people, together with all the seals which 

 were purposely spared, it was seen that the seal-mothers did 

 not begin to bear earlier thati the fifth year of their lives. Illus- 

 trative of this is the following : 



[a) On the island of Saint George, after the first " zapooska," 

 in 1828, the killing of five-year-old seals was continued gradu- 

 ally up to five times as many as at first; with those of five 

 years old, the killing stopj)ed ; then next year twelve times as 

 many six-year-olds were observed on the islands as compared 

 Avith their number of the last years, and with or in the seventh 

 year came seven times as many. This shows that females born 

 in 1828 did not begin to bear young until their fifth year, and 

 become with young accordingly ; that the large ones did not 

 appear or come in six years, (from 1828,) as is evident, for in 

 the fifth year all the females did not bring forth. 



6. It is known that the male seals cannot become " seecatchies" 

 (adult bulls) earlier than their fifth or sixth year; following 

 this, it may be said that the female bears earlier than the fourth 

 year. 



c. If the male seal cannot become a bull ("seecatchie") 

 earlier than the fifth year, then, as Buffon remarks, " animals 

 can live seven times the length of the period required for their 

 maturity ;" therefore a seecatch cannot live less than thirty years, 

 and a female not less than twenty-eight.* 



Taking the opiuioa of Buffon for ground in saying that 

 animals do not come to their full maturity until one-seventh 



* "This remark is sustained by the observation of old men, and especially 

 by one of the best Creoles, Shiesneekov, who was on the island of Saint Paul 

 in 1817, and who knows of one " seecatch," (known by a bald head,) which 

 in that time had already a large herd of cows or females, surrounded and 

 hunted by a like number of females and strong, savage old bulls ; therefore 

 it may be safely thought that this bull did not get his growth until his fifth 

 year, and at this time he could not have been less than ten years old ; and 

 this same bull came every year to the island and the same place for fifteen 

 years in succession, up to 1833, and it was only in the later years that his 

 harem grew smaller and smaller in number." 



