THE RUSSIAN EUR-SEAL ISLANDS. 
115 
side, while the bays theinseives are wonderfully sheltered by reefs and outlying rocks, 
thus affording admirable places of safety for the growing pups, features which will 
be fully appreciated by an inspection of plates 55 and 56. 
To illustrate the condition of these rookeries during the palmy days of the business 
I am fortunate enough to be able to copy a couple of Voloshiuof’s photographs (pis. 
53 and 57u) made in 1885, to which I shall refer more in detail later on. 
GLINKA KOOKEKIES, 1895. (Plato 14.) 
On the 2d of August I ap]iroached the Glinka rookeries in a boat from the north 
and proceeded along their entire front from Lebiazhi Mys to Babinskaya Bukhta, 
where we camped. I saw breeding seals in most of the places where 1 formerly saw 
them, but in vastly reduced numbers. Bacfielors were also seen, but they were few 
and far between. At Pestshani hauling-ground, the place which once siqiplied many 
thousands, and which even as late as 1893 furnished 3,137 skins, there was not a 
single bachelor. True, a drive had been made from that place only a few days earlier, 
which had resulted in 700 skins, but these 700 skins were all that this famous hauling- 
ground yielded in 1895. 
However, the location of nearly all the former hauling-grounds was marked, not 
so much by little bunches of a dozen bachelors or so, but, curiously enough, by a 
line of black haJf -hulls. They had hauled up and occupied the beaches with regular 
intervals, much as do the old bulls in spring before the arrival of the females; in 
fact they were in a measure playing sikatch! These lonesome, patiently waiting 
liolusikatchi were first seen at the old lianling-gTOunds on both sides of Lebiazhi Mys, 
and then on the west side of Peresheyek and of Pestshani Mys, and finally at the 
eastern end of Babinskaya Bukhta. At these places they had hauled out by them- 
selves. But, in addition, hundreds of these nearly mature young bulls (or probably 
mature, though not strong enough to tight the older ones) skirted the breeding- 
grounds, hauling out on outlying rocks and paying attention to the females coming 
out for a swim or a trip to the distant feeding-grounds. On the breeding-grounds 
dark-haired, vigorous-looking bulls abounded. 
This superabundance of vigorous, mature males was a strongly marked feature of 
the rookery. This is the more remarkable, if we remember that it was already late in 
the season when I visited Glinka and that, although I stayed until August .11, I saw 
no diminution of it. The natives also informed me that on account of the still greater 
number of bulls earlier in the season the fighting had been violent and incessant 
on the rookeries. This abundance of bulls I have been told has been noticed for 
several years. 
In strong contrast to this exuberance of virility was the thinness of the female 
ranks. They siu’ead over nearly the same teriitory as formerly, but the lines had 
shrunk and in many places there were large bare gaps. The magnificent Palata 
showed many of the characteiistic features that I knew so well, and yet it Avas only 
the shadoAV of the old rookery. The line running bacltAvard up the gully Avas there,^ 
but it was very thin and narrow and broken in idaces. A comparison of my old 
sketch (pi. 52), taken at high Avater,with my recent photograph from the identical stand- 
point, loAv water (pi. 51), Avill give some idea of the difference 1 sarv. Although taken 
from a point someAvhat different from mine. Colonel Voloshinof’s photograph of Palata 
as it looked in 1885 (pi. 53a) fully bears out my sketch, Avlien it is remembered that 
