| “Reef rookery” has 4,016 feet of sea-margin, with 150 feet of average depth, making ground for | 301,000 |
| “Gorbotch rookery” has 3,660 feet of sea-margin, with 100 feet of average depth, making ground for | 183,000 |
| “Lagoon rookery” has 750 feet of sea-margin, with 100 feet of average depth, making ground for | 37,000 |
| “Nah Speel rookery” has 400 feet of sea-margin, with 40 feet of average depth, making ground for | 8,000 |
| “Lukannon rookery” has 2,270 feet of sea-margin, with 150 feet of average depth, making ground for | 170,000 |
| “Keetavie rookery” has 2,200 feet of sea-margin, with 150 feet of average depth, making ground for | 165,000 |
| “Tolstoi rookery” has 3,000 feet of sea-margin, with 150 feet of average depth, making ground for | 225,000 |
| “Zapadnie rookery” has 5,880 feet of sea-margin, with 150 feet of average depth, making ground for | 441,000 |
| “Polavina rookery” has 4,000 feet of sea-margin, with 150 feet of average depth, making ground for | 300,000 |
| “Novastoshnah, or Northeast Point” has 15,840 feet of sea-margin, with 150 feet of average depth, making ground for | 1,200,000 |
| A grand total of breeding-seals and young for St. Paul Island in 1874 of | 3,030,000 |
The rookeries of St. George are designated and measured as below:
| “Zapadnie rookery” has 600 feet of sea-margin, with 60 feet of average depth, making ground for | 18,000 |
| “Starry Arteel rookery” has 500 feet of sea-margin, with 125 feet of average depth, making ground for | 30,420 |
| “North rookery” has 750 feet of sea-margin, with 150 feet of average depth, and 2,000 feet of sea-margin, with 25 feet of average depth, making ground in all for | 77,000 |
| “Little Eastern rookery” has 750 feet of sea-margin, with 40 feet of average depth, making ground for | 13,000 |
| “Great Eastern rookery” has 900 feet of sea-margin, with 60 feet of average depth, making ground for | 25,000 |
| A grand total of the seal-life for St. George Island, breeding-seals and young, of | 163,420 |
| Grand sum total for the Pribylov Islands (season of 1873), breeding-seals and young | 3,193,420 |
The figures thus given show a grand massing of 3,193,420 breeding-seals and their young. This enormous aggregate is entirely exclusive of the great numbers of the non-breeding-seals that, as we have pointed out, are never permitted to come up on those grounds which have been surveyed and epitomized by the table just exhibited. That class of seals, the “holluschickie,” in general terms (all males, and those to which the killing is confined), come up on the land and sea-beaches between the rookeries, in immense straggling droves, going to and from the sea at irregular intervals, from the beginning to the closing of an entire season. The method of the “holluschickie” on these hauling-grounds is not systematic—it is not distinct, like the manner and law prescribed and obeyed by the breeding-seals—therefore it is impossible to arrive at a definite enumeration, and my estimate for them is purely a matter of my individual judgment. I think they may be safely rated at 1,500,000; thus, we have the wonderful number of 4,700,000 fur-seals assembled every summer on the rocky rookeries and sandy hauling-grounds of the Pribylov Islands!
No language can express adequately your sensations when you first stroll over the outskirts of any one of those great breeding grounds of the fur-seal on St. Paul’s Island. There is no impression on my mind more fixed than is the one stamped thereon during the afternoon of a July day when I walked around the inner margins of that immense rookery at Northeast Point—indeed, while I pause to think of this subject, I am fairly rendered dumb by the vivid spectacle which rises promptly to my view—I am conscious of my inability to render that magnificent animal-show justice in definition. It is a vast camp of parading squadrons which file and deploy over slopes from the summit of a lofty hill a mile down to where it ends on the south shore—a long mile, smooth and gradual from the sea to that hill-top; the parade-ground lying between is also nearly three-quarters of a mile in width, sheer and unbroken. Now, upon that area before my eyes, this day and date of which I have spoken, were the forms of not less than three-fourths of a million seals—pause a moment—think of the number—three-fourths of a million seals, moving in one solid mass from sleep to frolicsome gambols, backward, forward, over, around, changing and interchanging their heavy squadrons, until the whole mind is so confused and charmed by the vastness of mighty hosts that it refuses to analyze any further. Then, too, I remember that the day was one of exceeding beauty for that region—it was a swift alternation overhead of those characteristic rain-fogs, between the succession of which the sun breaks out with transcendent brilliancy through misty halos about it. This parade-field reflected the light like a mirror, and the seals, when they broke apart here and there for a moment, just enough to show its surface, seemed as though they walked upon the water. What a scene to put upon canvas—that amphibian host involved in those alternate rainbow lights and blue-gray shadows of the fog!
Survey Showing the Immense Breeding Area of Novastoshnah.
[The shaded belt is that ground wholly covered by Fur-Seal Rookeries.]
While Novastoshnah is the largest, yet in some respects I consider Tolstoi, with its bluffs and its long sweep which takes in the sands of English Bay, to be the most picturesque, though it be not the most impressive rookery—especially when that parade-ground belonging to it is reached by the climbing seals.
From Tolstoi at this point, circling around three miles to Zapadnie, is the broad sand-beach of English Bay, upon which and back over its gently rising flats are the great hauling-grounds of the “holluschickie,” which I have indicated on the general map, and to which I made reference in a previous section of this chapter. Gazing at these myriads of “bachelor-seals” spread out in their restless hundreds and hundreds of thousands upon this ground, one feels the utter impotency of verbal description, and reluctantly shuts his note and sketch books to view it with renewed fascination and perfect helplessness.