THE FUR SEAL: CHANGES IN WEIGHT, 105 



during the time that they are here under our observation, since they are constantly changing from 

 land to water and from water to land, day in and day out. I do not think that the young males 

 fast longer than a week or ten days at a time, as a rule. 



DisPEKSAL OF THE " HoLLUSCHiCKiE." — By the end of October and the 10th of November, 

 the great mass of the " HoUuschickie," the trooping myriads of English Bay, Southwest Point, 

 Eeef Parade, Lukaunon Sands, the table-lands of Polavina, and the mighty hosts of Novostashnah, 

 at Saint Paul, together with the quota of Saint George, had taken their departure from its shores, 

 and had gone out to sea, spreading with the receding schools of fish that were now returning to 

 the deep waters of the North Pacific, where, in that vast expanse, over which rolls an unbroken 

 billow, five thousand miles from Japan to Oregon, they spend the winter and the early spring, 

 until they reappear and break up, with their exuberant life, the dreary winter isolation of the land 

 which gave them birth. 



Taste of the Seals in the matter of weathek. — A few stragglers remain, however, 

 as late as the snow and ice will permit them to, in and after December; they are all down by the 

 water's edge then, and haul up entirely on the rocky beaches, deserting the sand altogether; but 

 the first snow that falls makes them very uneasy, and I have seen a large hauling-ground so 

 disturbed by a rainy day and night, that its hundreds of thousands of occupants fairly deserted 

 it. The Fur Seal cannot bear, and will not endure, the spattering of sand into its eyes, which 

 always accompanies the driving of a rain-storm; they take to the water, to reappear when the 

 nuisance shall be abated. 



The weather in which the Fur Seal delights is cool, moist, foggy, and thick enough to keep the 

 sun always obscured, so as to cast no shadows. Such weather, which is the normal weather of 

 Saint Paul and Saint George, continued for a few weeks in June and July, brings up from the sea 

 millions of Fur Seals. But, as I have before said, a little sunshine, which raises the temperature 

 as high as 50° to 55° Fahr., will send them back from the hauling- grounds almost as quickly as 

 they came. Fortunately these warm, sunny days on the Pribylov Islands are so rare that the 

 Seals certainly can have no ground of complaint, even if we may presume they have any at all. 

 Some curious facts in regard to their selection of certain localities on these islands, and their 

 abandonment of others, I will discuss in a succeeding chapter, descriptive of the rookeries ; this 

 chapter is illustrated by topographical surveys made by myself. 



Albinos. — I looked everywhere and constantly, when treading my way over acres of ground 

 which were fairly covered with seal-pups, and older ones, for specimens that presented some 

 abnormity, that is, monstrosities, albinos, etc., such as I have seen in our great herds of stock; but 

 I was, with one or two exceptions, unable to note anything of the kind. I have never seen any 

 malformations or " monsters " among the pups and other classes of the Fur Seals, nor have the 

 natives recorded anything of the kind, so far as I could ascertain from them. I saw only three 

 albino pups among the multitudes on Saint Paul, and none on Saint George. They did not differ, 

 in any respect, from the normal pups in size and shape. Their hair, for the first coat, was a dull 

 ocher all over ; the fur whitish, changing to a rich brown, the normal hue; the flippers and muzzle 

 were a pinkish flesh tone in color, and the iris of the eye sky-blue. When they shed the following 

 year, they are said to have a dirty, yellowish-white color, which makes them exceedingly conspic- 

 uous when mixed in among a vast majority of black pups, gray yearlings, and " HoUuschickie" of 

 their kind. 



MoNSTKOBiTiES AMONG- THE SEALS. — Touching this question of monstrosities, I was led to 

 examine a number of alleged examples presented to my attention by the natives, who took some 

 interest, in their sluggish way, as to what I was doing here. They brought me an albino fur-seal 



