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be outlined. The defi ciency in information for the Asiatic coast depends 

 upon the fact that pelagic sealing, as understood on the coast of 

 America, is there practically unknown, while the people inhabiting 

 the coast and its adjaceni islands do not, like the Indians and Aleuts 

 of the opposite side of the North Pacific, naturally venture far to sea 

 for hunting purposes. The facts already cited in connection with the 

 migration of tlie seals on the east side of the Pacific show that these 

 animals enter and leave Bering Sea almost entirely by the eastern 

 passes through the Aleutian chain, aiul that only under exceptional 

 circumstances, and under stress of weather, are some young seals, 

 while on their way south, driven as far to the west as Atka Island. 

 No large bodies of migrating seals are known to pass near Attn Island, 

 the westernmost of the Aleutians, and no young seals have ever tcithin 

 memory been seen there. These circumstances, with others which it 

 is not necessary to detail here, are sufficient to demonstrate that the 

 main migration routes of the seals frequenting the Commander Islands 

 do not touch the Aleutian chain, and there is every reason to believe 

 that although the seals become more or less commingled in Eerijig Sea, 

 during the summer, the migration routes of the two sides of the North 

 Pacific are essentially distinct. The inquiries and observations now 

 made, however, enable it to be shown that the fur seals of the two 

 sides of the North Pacific belong in the main to practically distinct 

 migration tracts.^ both of which are elsewhere traced out and described, 

 and it is believed that while to a certain extent transfers of individual 

 seals or of small groups occur, probably ever year, between the 

 Pribilof and Commander tribes, that this is exceptional rather than 

 normal. It is not believed that any voluntary or systematie movement 

 of fur seals takes place from one group of breeding islands to the other, 

 but it is probable that a continual harassing of the seals upon one group 

 might result, in a course of years, in a corresiionding gradual accessiou 

 to the other group. 



"There is no evidence whatever to show that any considerable branch 

 of the seal tribe which has its winter home off the coast of British 

 Columbia resorts in summer to the Commander Islands, whether vol- 

 Qutarily or led thither in pursuit of food fishes; and inquiries along the 

 Aleutian chain show that no regular migration route follows its direc- 

 tion, whether to the north or south of the islands. It is certain that 

 the young seals, in going southward from the Pribilof Islands, only 

 rarely get drifted westward as far as the one hundred and seventy- 



