82 INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



We now proceed, and right under the foot of the middle shoulder 

 since we left station W the first seal life reappears, and we find here 

 3 bulls with about 50 cows. 



From the middle shoulder, where we have just enumerated this 

 appearance of the seal life since we left station W, we now traverse 

 the finish of this coast line of Novastoshnah, to the south shoulder, 

 and as we go we observe not even a shadow of this life — there is 

 not a single seal from our starting point to the finish at station B; 

 not a sign of seal life. 



As we look back, over and along the whole route that we have 

 traversed this morning, in and out of these pocket harems, and 

 over the ground covered by the survey of 1890, we are impressed 

 with the fact that the seal life as we see it now is far short of that 

 surplus male life which nature intended should surround and serve 

 as sires for the breeding harems. Throughout this entire circuit 

 we have been impressed with the fact that the number of cows 

 in harems are abnormally large. They are nearly three times greater 

 than the proportion which is naturally found in their normal con- 

 dition. The bulls evidently have had no real fighting to main- 

 tain and secure their positions, since very few of them have any 

 combat marks. The result is that we find an aggregate of very 

 large harems, spreading out into scattered or ragged harems on 

 either side, in which the service is often devolved upon the single 

 bull, unless assisted, far beyond his power, since many of these 

 larger harems, numbering not less than 120 to 130 cows, were observed. 



In a very large majority of the pocket harems the families exceeded 

 60 to 75 cows; the ragged harems of 5 to 10 cows, surrounding 

 them, make up the total of active bulls as against the total of breed- 

 ing cows, a misleading summing up; because, really, the bulls which 

 are in active service within the lines of the large harems are doing 

 three and four times the work they should do, while the others are 

 practically idle. Then, also, we observe, as we complete the cir- 

 cuit, that same crowding unnaturally, by the breeding seals, to 

 the surf line, instead of lying up in a normal manner, 10 or 12 feet 

 back from the surf wash at high tide. That is due undoubtedly 

 to the incessant hunting and chasing of these holluschickie by the 

 natives and pup counting along the lines of these harems and the 

 sea margin, as the lessees urged the native drivers to get them or 

 the agents directed the "live-pup counts" — all wrong. 



From here on the north, middle, and south shoulders the small 

 hauling of holluschickie reported in 1890 has entirely disappeared, 

 and it seems to now be entirely confined to that single exhibition, 

 as above cited, at stations M and N. 



We might add that this morning we have seen the first badly 

 injured bull thus far seen on our survey, and that we have not seen 

 a single exhibition of "bulls fighting for possession of the females" 

 or of "cows being torn to pieces' ' by the bulls, or of "pups tram- 

 pled to death" on the rookery. 



We have carefully looked into nearly every one of the harems, 

 and we have not seen more than one dead pup. We have not seen 

 the slightest evidence of any sickness or distemper among these 

 seals, old or young. 



