54 THE ASIATIC FUR-SEAL ISLANDS 



From these quotations it is perfectly plain that at the time of the discovery of 

 Bering Island there were no breeding grounds or rookeries on the east side of the 

 island; that there were well- filled breeding grounds on the west side; that these were 

 situated on the shore where now are located the few hundred females forming the 

 Poludionuoye, or South, Eookery, and that vast numbers of bachelors hauled up in 

 Lissonkovaya Bay, where there are none now, nor have there been any apparently 

 within the memory of the natives residing on the island. 



The destruction of this hauling ground must be credited to the same parties who 

 accomplished the extermination of the sea cow in twenty-seven years. ^ 



At the present day there are only two distinct rookeries on Beijing Island, the 

 principal one being located on the northern coast of the island, the other, a small 

 affair, on the west coast. 



THE NOETH EOOKEET. (Plate 94.) 



The great North Eookery {Severnoye lezhhishtche) is situated on the northermost 

 prolongation of the island (Severni Mys; also called Gape Tushin) about 11 miles 

 from the main village, Nikolski, and about 10 miles from the northwest cape, Zapadni 

 Mys. The north plateau of the island recedes here from the sea, leaving a broad, 

 level tundra, which slopes gently northward toward the sea, ending abruptly in a 

 steep escarpment, about 30 feet high, between which and the water a flat beach, about 

 400 feet wide, extends all around the poin t. 



From this beach a long, rocky reef, of volcanic origin, extends for half a mile 

 nearly due north, ending in a somewhat isolated high rock, the so-called Sea-lion Eock 

 (Sivutchi Kamen). The terminal half of this reef is very low and, with the exception 

 of the scattered larger rocks, under water at high tide; in fact, it requires very low 

 water to be able to walk out to the Sea-lion Rock. The basal half is formed by a 

 slightly raised, long and narrow peninsula, about a quarter of a mile long by 400 feet 

 wide, the central portion of which constitutes a hard, gravelly beach about 10 feet 

 above mean tide, and gently sloping toward the water on both sides, and fringed, 

 except at the base, by the rocky reef. The northern two-thirds of this gravelly central 

 portion is covered with fragments of shells of mollusks and echinoderms, so that it 

 appears quite white, for which reason this part of the rookery is often spoken of as 

 "the sands;" the basal third is covered with a very rank growth of Elymus mollis, 

 continuous with the fields of the same grass which line the inner portion of the beach 

 up to the escarpment. The vegetation is now gradually extending in a wedge-shaped 

 point northward over the central part of "the sands." Several isolated rocks surround 

 the rookery on both sides, as well as numerous sunken reefs. 



From the base of the projecting point thus described, which is specifically 

 designated as the Eeef Eookery (Rifovoye lezhbisMche), the coast trends east and is 

 fringed with the same rocky reef as the rookery itself; but the seals do not haul up on 

 these rocks, and they form no part of the rookery. The bay thus inclosed is 

 comparatively shallow and sheltered, forming the principal playing ground of the 

 pups. Here they learn to swim. Near the south shore the rocks mark off a series of 

 shallow lagoons. 



'L. Stejneger, How the Great Northern Sea Cow (Bytina) Became Exterminated. American 

 Nattualist, xxi, December, 1887, pp. 1047-1054. 



