The first arrivals are not always the oldest bulls, but may be said to be the finest and most ambitious of their class. They are full grown and able to hold their places on the rookeries or the breeding flats, which they immediately take up after coming ashore. Their method of landing is to come collectively to those breeding grounds where they passed the prior season; but I am not able to say authoritatively, nor do I believe it, strongly as it has been urged by many careful men who were with me on the islands, that these animals come back to and take up the same position on their breeding grounds that they individually occupied when there last year. From my knowledge of their action and habit, and from what I have learned of the natives, I should say that very few, if any, of them make such a selection and keep these places year after year. Even did the seal itself intend to come directly from the sea to that spot on the rookery which it left last summer, what could it do if it came to that rookery margin a little later and found that another “see-catch” had occupied its ground? The bull could do nothing. It would either have to die in its tracks, if it persisted in attaining this supposed objective point, or do what undoubtedly it does do—seek the next best locality which it can secure adjacent. [Illustration: “OLD JOHN” A Life Study of an aged Fur Seal-Bull or “See-catch.”—Gorbatch Rookery, July 2, 1872] One aged “see-catch” was pointed out to me at the “Gorbatch” section of the Reef rookery, as an animal that was long known to the natives as a regular visitor, close by or on the same rock, every season during the past three years. They called him “Old John,” and they said they knew him because he had one of his posterior digits missing, bitten off, perhaps, in a combat. I saw him in 1872, and made careful drawings of him in order that I might recognize his individuality, should he appear again in the following year, and when that time rolled by, I found him not; he failed to reappear, and the natives acquiesced in his absence. Of course it was impossible to say that he was dead when there were ten thousand rousing, fighting bulls to the right, left, and below us, under our eyes, for we could not approach for inspection. Still, if these animals came each to a certain place in any general fashion, or as a rule, I think there would be no difficulty in recognizing the fact; the natives certainly would do so; as it is, they do not I think it very likely, however, that the older bulls come back to the same common rookery ground where they spent the previous season; but they are obliged to take up their position on it just as the circumstances attending their arrival will permit, such as finding other seals which have arrived before them, or of being whipped out by stronger rivals from their old stands.