REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 41 



'•This appallino- destruction is not conlined to mammals. 

 Disregarding- tlie l)irds of song and plumage, to which the 

 fashions of the milliner have brought disaster, nearly all the 

 larger and more characteristic American birds have suffered 

 in the same way as their four-footed contemporaries. The 

 fate of the great Auk is familiar to all naturalists; but it is 

 not so well known that the great Californian vulture and sev- 

 eral of the Ijeautif ul sea fowl of our coasts have met the same 

 fate, and that the wild pigeon, whose astonishing flocks were 

 dwelt upon by Audubon and others in such remarkable 

 descriptions and which were long the wonder of American 

 travelers, with the less known, but magnilicent ivor}-- 

 billed woodpecker, and the pretty Carolina parrakeet, have 

 all become, if not extinct, among the rarest of birds. 



"Apart from the commercial value of its skins, the tax upon 

 which has paid for the cost of our vast Alaskan territor}', the 

 singular habits and teeming millions of the northern fur seal 

 have excited general interest even among those who are not 

 interested in natural history. In 1840 these animals abounded 

 from Lower California to the lonely Alaskan Isles, and it had 

 been supposed that the precautions taken by the Government 

 for their protection on the breeding grounds of the Pribilof 

 Islands would preserve permanently the still considerable rem- 

 nant which existed after the purchase of Alaska and the destruc- 

 tion of the southern rookeries. But it is becoming too evident 

 that the gi-eed of the hunters and the devastation caused by 

 the general adoption of the method of pursuing them in the 

 open sea, destroying indiscriminately mothers and offspring, 

 is going to bring these hopes to naught. 



"For most of these animals, therefore, it may be regarded as 

 certain that, unless some small remnant be preserved in a semi- 

 domesticated state, a few years Avill bring utter extinction. 

 The American of the next generation, when questioned about 

 the animals once characteristic of his country, will then be 

 forced to confess that with the exception of a few insigniticant 

 creatures, ranking as vermin, this broad continent possesses 

 none of those species which once covered it, since the present 

 generation will have completed the destruction of them all." 



During the eleven years that have elapsed since these para- 

 graphs were written, the writer has presented these consider- 

 ations every session, with the insistance it seemed to him their 

 importance deserved, until of late years h(» has had to feel 

 that the opportunity for saving this remnant, which was going 

 more and more each year, had in some respects finally gone. 

 The great Kadiak bear, the largest carnivorous animal upon 

 the planet, since the report above cjuoted was written, has been 

 driven farther and farther into the interior, until a specimen 



