Note 141 — Chapter XI · THE ALASKAN SEA-LION.

The winter of 1872-73, which I passed on the Pribylov Islands, was so rigorous that those shores were ice-bound, and the sea covered with floes from January until May 28th; hence I did not have an opportunity of seeing, for myself, whether the sea-lion remains about its breeding-grounds there throughout that period. The natives say that a few of them, when the sea is open, are always to be found, at any day during the winter and early spring, hauled out at Northeast Point, on Otter Island, and around St. George. They are, in my opinion, correct; and, being in such small numbers, the “seevitchie” undoubtedly find enough subsistence in local crustacea, pisces, and other food. The natives, also, further stated that none of the sea-lions which we observe on the islands during the breeding-season leave the waters of Bering Sea from the date of their birth to the time of their death. I am also inclined to agree with this proposition, as a general rule, though it would be strange if Pribylov sea-lions did not occasionally slip into the North Pacific, through and below the Aleutian chain, a short distance, even to travelling as far to the eastward as Cook’s Inlet. Eumetopias stelleri is well known to breed at many places between Attoo and Kadiak Islands. I did not see it at St. Matthew, however, and I do not think it has ever bred there, although this island is only two hundred miles away to the northward of the Seal Islands—too many polar bears. Whalers speak of having shot it in the ice-packs in a much higher latitude, nevertheless, than that of St. Matthew. I can find no record of its breeding anywhere on the islands or mainland coast of Alaska north of the fifty-seventh parallel or south of the fifty-third parallel of north latitude. It is common on the coast of Kamchatka, the Kurile Islands, and the Commander group, in Russian waters.

There are vague and ill-digested rumors of finding Eumetopias on the shores of Prince of Wales and Queen Charlotte Islands in breeding rookeries; I doubt it. If it were so, it would be authoritatively known by this time. We do find it in small numbers on the Farallones Rocks, off the entrance to the harbor of San Francisco, where it breeds in company with, though sexually apart from, an overwhelming majority of Zalophus; and it is credibly reported as breeding again to the southward, on the Santa Barbara, Guadaloupe, and other islands of Southern and Lower California, consorting there, as on the Farallones, with an infinitely larger number of the lesser-bodied Zalophus.

There is no record made which shows that the fur-seals, even, have any regular or direct course of travel up or down the northwest coast. They are principally seen in the open sea, eight or ten miles from land, outside the heads of the Straits of Fuca, and from there as far north as Dixon Sound. During May and June they are aggregated in greatest numbers here, though examples are reported the whole year around. The only fur-seal which I saw, or was noted by the crew of the Reliance, in her cruise, June 1st to 9th, from Port Townsend to Sitka, was a solitary “holluschak” that we disturbed at sea well out from the lower end of Queen Charlotte’s Islands; then, from Sitka to Kadiak, we saw nothing of the fur-seal until we hauled off from Point Greville, and coming down to Ookamok Islet, a squad of agile “holluschickie” suddenly appeared among a school of humpback whales, sporting in the most extravagant manner around, under, and even leaping over the wholly indifferent cetacea. From this eastern extremity of Kadiak Island clear up to the Pribylov group we daily saw them here and there in small bands, or also as lonely voyageurs, all headed for one goal. We were badly outsailed by them; indeed, the chorus of a favorite “South Sea pirate’s” song, as incessantly sung on the cutter’s “‘tween decks,” seemed to have special adaptation to them: