ALASKA FUR SEAL. 185 



reference to the drainage, having a great dislike to water- 

 puddled ground. This is well known at Saint Paul. 



" I have found it difi&cult to ascertain the average of 

 cows to one bull on a rookery, but I think it will be 

 nearly correct to assign to each male from twelve to 

 fifteen females, occupying the stations nearest the water, 

 and those back in the rear from five to nine. I have 

 counted forty-five cows all under the charge of one bull, 

 who had penned them up on a flat table rock, near Kee- 

 kwee Point ; the bull was enabled to do this quite easily, 

 as there was but one way to go to or come from this 

 seraglio, and on this path the Old Turk took his stand 

 and guarded it well. At the rear of all these rookeries 

 there is always a large number of able-bodied bulls, who 

 wait patiently but in vain for families, most of them 

 having had to fight as desperately for the privilege of 

 being there as any of their more fortunately located 

 brethren, who are nearer the water than themselves. 



" As soon as the pup is dropped (twins are rare if 

 ever) it finds its voice, a weak husky bla-at, and begins 

 to paddle about with its eyes open. 



"' Hauling grounds ' upon which the yearlings, and 

 most all the males under six years, come out from the 

 sea in squads from a hundred to a thousand, and, later 

 ia the season, by hundreds of thousands, to sleep and 

 frolic, going sometimes a quarter to half a mile from the 

 sea, as at English Bay. This class of Seals are termed 

 ' hoUus-chukie,' or bachelor Seals, by the natives. It is 

 with Seals of this division that these people are most 

 familiar, since they are, together with a few thousand 

 pups and some old bulls, the only ones driven up to the 

 killing grounds for their skins. 



" The ' hoUus-chukie,' too, are the champion swim- 

 piers ; at least they do about all the fancy tumbling and 



