44 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



REPLY OF DR. G. HARTLAUB. 



Bremen, April 23, 1892. 

 Mr. C. Hart Merriam. 



Dear Sir : Your excellent report on the northern fur seal I have read and reread 

 with iutense interst. 



I am far from attributing to myself a competent judgment regarding this matter, 

 hut considering all facts which you have so clearly and convincingly combined and 

 expressed, it seems to me thai the measures you propose in order to prohibit the 

 threatening decay of the northern fur seal are the only correct ones promising an 

 effective result. . . 



I sincerely regret that for practical reasons it can not be thought of to prohibit 

 fur-seal hunting for a few years entirely, as this would naturally assist numerically 

 the menaced animal. 



There is at any rate clanger in view, and it can not be too strongly emphasized that 

 your 80 well-founded proposals should be executed at the earliest time possible. 



With sincere thanks for the confidence you have placed in my judgment, I am, 

 dear sir, your most obedient, 



Dr. G. Hartlaub. 



REPLY OF PROP. ROBERT COLLETT, OF THE ZOOLOGICAL MUSEUM OF THE UNIVERSITY 



OF CHRISTIANIA, NORWAY. 



Christiania, April 22, 1892. 



My Dear Sir: It would be a very easy reply to your highly interesting treatise 

 of the fur seal, which you have been kind enough to send us, when I only answered 

 yon that I agree with you entirely in all points. No doubt it would be the greatest 

 value for the rookeries on the Pri'bilof Islands, as well as for the preservation of the 

 existence of the seal, if it would be possible to stop the sealing at sea at all. But' 

 that will no doubt be very dif6cult when so many nations partake in the sealing, 

 and how that is to go about I can not know. My own countrymen are killing every 

 year many thousands of seals, Cysto pJioroe, on the ice barrier between Spitzbergen 

 and Greenland, but never females with young; either are the old ones caught or — 

 and that is the greatest number— the young seals. But there is a close time, accepted 

 by the different nations, just to prohibit the killing of the females with young. 

 Perhaps a similar close time could be accepted in the Bering Sea, but that is a ques- 

 tion about which I can not have any opinion. 



Many thanks for the paper. 



Yours, very truly, E. Collett. 



REPLY OF LEOPOLD VON SCHRENCK. 



St. Petersburg, April 15/25, 1892. 



Dear Sir: Having read with eager and critical attention the memoir you have 

 addressed to me upon the condition of the fur-seal rookeries on the Pribilof Islands 

 in Bering Sea, the causes of decrease and the measures necessary for the restora- 

 tion and permanent preservation of the seal herd, I can not but completely agree 

 with you in considering the conclusions and recommendations you arrived at quite 

 justified and necessitated by the facts. I am also persuc-wled that the pelagic sealing, 

 if pursued in the same manner in future, will necessarily end with the extermination 

 of the fur seal. 



Very truly, yours, 



Leopold von Schrenck, 

 Member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg. 



REPLY OF DR. HENRY H. GIGLIOLI. 

 t 



FiRENZE, 19 VIA RoMANA, May 2, 1892. 

 Dear Sir: Tears ago, in November, 1867, I had the good fortune to be able to 

 visit an extensive rookery of one of the South Pacific eared seals, the well-known 

 Otaria jubata. It was during my voyage round the world on the Magenta. The 

 rookery in question lies just behind Cape Stokes in the Gulf of Penas, on the south- 

 ern coast of Chile, and is the one seen by Darwin during his memorable voyage in 

 the Beagle. I shall never forget that day, when my astonished gaze rested on hun- 

 dreds of these eared seals lying about in every attitude of repose on the beach and 



