THE RUSSIAN FUR-SEAL ISLANDS. 
Ill 
the lowest figure. The percentages are, therefore, very nearly correct. If there is any 
error, it is in understating the number of females, but I am sure that the possible error 
does not exceed 1 per cent. 
The figures of the 13 drives in the table previously given were ascertained in the 
same manner, and 1 have no doubt that tliey are essentially correct. No tally was 
kept iirevious to the drive on July 14, and I failed to obtain the details of the drive 
on July 24, but there is no reason to believe that the percentage of the classes was 
different in these drives, except that 1 was informed that there were no females or xnips 
ill the first drive, June 13. In order to complete the record of this rookery for 189.1, 1 
submit the following table of the skins taken in each drive during the summer season : 
Total number of skins taken on North Rookery, ISeriny Island, during the summer season of 1895. 
Date of <lrivc. 
Slvius. 
Date of drive. 
Skins. 
.June 13 
June 25 
July 0 
July 14 
July 19 
July 24 
Jul'y 29 
Aus. 2 
Aug. 4 
no 
187 
262 
348 
545 
1, 057 
733 
016 
217 
Aug. G 
Aug. 8 
Aug. 12 
Aug. 22 
Aug. 24 
Aug. 31 
Sept. 10 
Sept. 13 
Total 
875 
189 
532 
905 
232 
880 
459 
194 
8, 341 
Looking again at the table of the classes in the 13 drives, we note that it was 
necessary to drive off over 29,000 seals in order to obtain 6,725 skins, and that ot 
those 29,000 no less than 20,568 were females. As already stated, there is no reason 
to supjiose that the percentage of females differed materially in the other 4 drives, 
except one. If, therefore, we calculate the corresponding figures for a total of 8,231 
(8,341—110) skins, we find that in order to obtain 8,341 skins, the total catch for the 
season, it was necessary to drive off to the killing- grounds 35,741 seals, of all ages, of 
which the astounding number of 25,174 were females. In this count are not included such 
females as were allowed to escape along the road of the drive, although the number 
of females thus culled was comiiaratively few, as the men were afraid of letting a 
single killable bachelor escape. 
Nothing could better illustrate the straits to which this rookery has come. On 
the other hand, nothing could better demonstrate how little the driving disturbs the 
seals. Here is a rookery where the females have been driven probably as long as seals 
have been taken, though not in the same proportion as now. Yet, the females return 
to be driven over and over again, and the breeding-ground is the part of the rookery 
least affected in the general decrease. 
A great amount of mortality due to starvation was observed among the pups, but 
is here only alluded to, as I have treated of that question in another connection (p. 78). 
SOUTH KOOKERT, 1882. (Plate 9.) 
This rookery, although probably the remnant of the innumerable multitudes which 
Steller speaks of, has not been of much account of recent years. After the interreg- 
num, 1869-4871, it was so insignificant that no regular catch seems to have been made 
until 1880, although occasionally, i. e., before and after the season closed on North 
Rookery, a few seals were killed at Poludionnoye in order to get fresh meat for the 
main village, Nikolski. Thus, in 1878, 50 were killed in June and 30 on November 5, 
