104 
BULLETIN OB" THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
their time, acting as officers, under the immediate command of the administrator and 
his assistant. Watchhonses are erected overlooking the rookeries, and the ghards 
provided with good spyglasses and rapid-tiring army rifles. Stands of arms and 
plenty of ammunition are kept in the Government building at the settlements. 
The central authorities maintain the supervision of the local administration by 
occasionally sending out an inspector, or “revisor,” as he is called. His duty is to 
ascertain the state of affairs generally, as well as the condition of the natives, to 
receive any complaints of the latter, and investigate their grievances. 
A change has of late years been effected in the higher administration of the 
islands, inasmuch as they have been transferred from the Department of the Interior 
to the Department of the Imperial Domains, without prejudice, however, to the terri- 
torial jurisdiction of the governor-general of the Amur Provinces. The adminisfra- 
tive status of the Commander Islands is therefore now exactly parallel to that of 
the Pribylof Islands in their double relation to the United States Treasury and the 
governor of the Territory of Alaska. 
CONDITION OF THE COMMANDER ISLANDS ROOKERIES. 
PKELIMINAKY KEMAEKS. 
When, in 1882, Prof. S. F. Baird sent me to the Commander Islands to study their 
natural history he also impressed upon me the desirability of obtaining some infor- 
mation in regard to the fur-seal and the sealing industry of the islands. Owing to 
my hurried departure — I had only 48 hours in which to prepare for the expedition 
destined to stay two years in the field — I failed to take a photographic outfit with 
me. In default of photographs, however, I made numerous sketches of the rook- 
eries, and also undertook to construct maps of them by means of an azimuth compass 
and a x)ediometer. I submit some of the sketches with this report in exact facsimile 
of the originals; they have not been touched up in any manner (pis. 20, 41,42, 43). For 
that reason they appear extremely crude, but it is thought that they will be accepted 
with more confidence in their present shape and carry with them more conviction than 
if they had been fixed up or “improved” in any way. 
The only i>hotographs of the rookeries in their palmy days were taken by the 
Russian Colonel Voloshinof, but with only a few exceptions they are not intended 
to portray the totality of seal life on the individual rookeries, and for that reason 
offer but scant material for comparison with my sketches of 1882-83, or my j)hoto- 
graphs of 1895, the more so since the points of view in all instances except one are 
different from mine. However, those that can be utilized in this connection I have 
reproduced. 
When photographing the rookeries last summer I made a special effort to obtain 
views from the identical points from which I had made my sketches in 1882 and 1883. 
Taking into account the different focus of the eye and the photographic lens, I thiidt 
a comparison between the sketches and the photographs will establish the general 
accuracy and truthfulness of the former. 
When studying the rookeries in 1882-83, 1 did it with H. W, Elliott’s Monograph 
of the Pribylof group in my hands. In the main I found that his observations in 
regard to seal life were applicable to the Commander Islands seals, and at the same 
time that the conditions of the sealing industry were also nearly the same on the two 
groups, so far as could be judged from descriptions alone. There were minor points 
