64.2 



ZO(JLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN. 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN. 



ELVVIN K. SANBORN, Edit.jr. 

 9r)iarlmrnts : 



W. T. HOKNADAV, SO.D. 



Published Bi-Monthly at the Office of the Society, 



11 Wall Street, New York City. 



Single Numbers, lu Cents ; Yearly, 50 Cents. 



MAILED KKEE TO MEMBERS. 



Copyright, 1910, by the New York Zoological Society. 



jjiiiER 38 .MARCH, lilU) 



(QSittrB of tift ^actrtg. 



Sxrrutfue (Sammtttrr : 



Madison Grant, Chairman, 



John S. Barnes, Samuel Thoknk, William White Niles, 



I'ERCY R. Pyne, Levi P. Morton, Wm. Pierson Hamilton 



Henry Fairfield osborn, Ex-Otficio. 



(^ttiecal tSt&tttB : 



Secretary, Madison Grant, 11 Wall Street. 



Treasurer, Percy B. Pyne, 3(J Pine Street. 



Uirector. William T. Hornaday, Sc.d., Zoological Park. 



Director of the Aquarium, Charles H. Townsend,Sc. D., Battery Park. 



SaarEi of ManngeTB : 



Ex-Officio 

 The Mayor of the City of New York - • Hon. William J. Gaynor 

 The President of the Department of I'arks, Hon. Charles B. Stover 



(SUiBoflSll. ffilana of 1912. (Slaaa of 1913. 



Henry F. Osborn, Levi P. Morton, F. Augustus Schermerhorn 



William C. Church, Andrew Carnegie, Percy R. Pyne, 

 Lispenard Stewart, John L. Cadwalader, George B. Grinnell, 

 H. Casimir De Rham, John S. Barnes, Jacob H. Schiff, 



Hugh D. Auchincloss, Madison Grant, George C. Clark, 



Charles F. Dieterich, William White Niles, Cleveland H. Dodge, 

 James J. Hill, Samuel Thome, G. Ledyard Blair, 



George F. Baker, Henry A. C. Taylor, Nelson Robinson, 



Grant B. Schley, Hugh J. Chisholm, Frederick G. Bourne, 



Payne Whitney, Frank K. Sturgis, W. Austin Wadsworth. 



James W. Barney, George J. Gould, Emerson JIcMillin, 



VVm.PiersouHamilton Ogden Mills Anthony R. Kuser 



(Sfficrra ot tl)i Zoalogical Partt : 



W. T. Hornaday, Sc. D., Director. 

 H. R. Mitchell - - - - chief Clerk and Disbursing Officer. 

 Raymond L. Ditmars - - Curator of Reptiles. 



0. William Bkebe ■ ■ - Curator of Birds. 

 \V. Reid Blair, D.V.S. - - Veterinarian and Pathologist. 



H. W. Merkel .... chief Forester and Constructor. 

 G. M. Bkerbower - - - Civil Engineer. 



VV. I. Mitchell . . - . office Assistant. 

 Elwin R. Sanborn - ■ - Editor and Photographer. 



(Sffifcra of ti\t Aquarium : 



Charles H. Townsend, Sc.D., Director. 



L. B. Spencer Fresh Water Collections. 



W. L DkNyse Marine Collections. 



ENLARGEMENT OF THE AQUARIUM 

 BUILDING. 



The year IQOQ brought to the Aquarium 

 3,803,501 visitors — an average of 10,417 a day. 

 Every year shows an increase, and the total at- 

 tendance for the past thirteen years exceeds 

 twenty-five and one-half millions. 



The Annual Report of the Zoological Society, 

 now in press, contains plans for an enlarged 

 building, wJiich is greatly needed. The number 

 of people visiting the Aquarium is greater than 

 that of all the other museums of the City com- 

 bined, and there is every reason to believe that 

 it will continue to increase. The time has come 

 for a larger building, and the Aquarium should 



be given its rightful place among our institu- 

 tions as a great marine museum. It should be 

 large enough to contain three times the number 

 and varietj' of aquatic forms it now contains, 

 and should have a scientific staff capable of do- 

 ing properly the museum work already being 

 demanded of it by the j^eople. 



Tile Director with the aid of a single stenog- 

 rapher finds himself unable to attend to the cor- 

 respondence, office and museum work thrust upon 

 liim. The Aquarium should be enlarged, should 

 have a staft' of curators, and be given the com- 

 mon facilities for museum work that are freely 

 granted to the otiier museums of the city. 



These important matters are set forth in de- 

 tail in the Annual Report, and their careful con- 

 sideration is urgently recommended to tlie mem- 

 bers of the Zoological Society and the citizens 

 of New York. 



CAN WE SAVE THE FUR SEAL? 



The American fur-seal herd breeding on the 

 Pribilof Islands in Bering Sea, has been 

 shrinking in size and commercial value ever 

 since the business of pelagic or ocean sealing 

 came into really active existence, about 1880. 



A careful census of the herd made on the 

 i.slands last .summer by the Bureau of Fisheries, 

 shows that there are about 150,000 seals of all 

 ages remaining, the important class of breed- 

 ing females numbering about 50,000. The cen- 

 sus of 18})7 revealed 150,000 breeding females. 



Tlie cause of the decline has been the continu- 

 ance of pelagic sealing, which is destructive to 

 the mother seals, and results in a further loss of 

 equal numbers of young by starvation. 



For some years after the regulations of the 

 Paris Award, restricting the operations of the 

 pelagic sealing fleet, witiiin a zone of fiO miles 

 of the Pribilof Islands, were put into operation, 

 the decline in the seal herd was comparatively 

 slow, although certain. 



More recently a fleet of Japanese vessels has 

 been engaged in sealing close to the territorial 

 limit of three miles from the islands, Japan not 

 being a party to the regulations framed by the 

 Paris Arbitration. 



This has resulted in transferring our long 

 standing pelagic sealing problem from Canada 

 to Japan, wliile tlie advance of the seal killing 

 line from the 60 mile limit to the immediate vi- 

 cinity of the breeding grounds of the seals, has 

 accelerated the rate of destruction of seal life. 



United States vessels have long been prohib- 

 ited from engaging in pelagic sealing. 



The large catches formerly made at sea by 

 vessels, and on land under Government super- 

 \ision, can no longer be made. Canadian ves- 



