123 



of a somewliat difFerent species from the i^ortlicrn Fur Seals, but 

 liaving most of tlie same characteristics, could be seen in numbers 

 almost incredible on numerous coasts and islands in the Southern 

 Ocean, off the coasts of South America. According to the concur- 

 rent testimony of navigators and naturalists, all these herds in the 

 southern seas have been annihilated, or so reduced in numbers that it 

 is no longer worth while to visit them, "owing," to use the language of 

 Sir William H. Flower, the distinguished head of the Ibitisli Natural 

 History Museum, "to the ruthless and indiscriminate slaughter carried 

 on by ignorant and lawless sealers, regardless of everything but imme- 

 diate profit." We have the authority of the same eminent naturalist 

 for saying: "The only spot in the world where the fur seals are now 

 found in their original, or even increased, numbers, is the Pribilof group, 

 a circumstance entirely owing to the rigid enforcement of the wise reg- 

 ulations of the Alaska Commercial Company. But for tliis tlie fur seal 

 before now would have been added to the long list of animals extermi- 

 nated from the earth by the hand of man." Fifty -second Congress 

 United States, First session, Senate Ex. Doc. No. 55, pp, 06-97. 



Dr. Philip Lutley Sclater, of the Zoological Society of London, in a 

 recent article to which our attention has been called, says, substantially 

 in conformity with the evidence before us : " In former days South Africa, 

 Australia, and South America all supplied seal slcins for the market, 

 derived either from the shores of the continents themselves, or from the 

 adjoining islands, to which the fur seals resorted for the purpose of 

 breeding and bringing uj) their young. But the Antarctic fur seal trade 

 is now practically extinct, owing to the indiscriminate slaughter of these 

 animals, which commenced at the end of the last century and was con- 

 tinned until the reduction in their numbers rendered the trade altogether 

 unprofitable. In a single year, it is said tliat 300,000 seal skins were 

 taken from the South Shetland Islands, and upward of 3,000,000 are 

 stated to have been carried off from the island of Mas-a-fnero, near 

 Juan Fernandez, in the short space of seven years. In fact, the breed- 

 ing i)Iaces, or rookeries, as they are called, of the fur seals in the Ant- 

 arctic seas have been entirely destroyed. The myriads of seals which 

 formerly resorted to them have been either swept away or reduced to 

 a few individuals, which seek the land in scattered bands and rush to 

 the sea on the approach of man. There can be little question, we see, 

 of the fate that will overtake these animals in other parts of the world 

 unless effective measures are instituted for their protection. Although, 



