NOTES ON CERTAIN BINNIREDs; 
WITH DATA RESPECTING THEIR PRESENT COMMERCIAL IMPORTANCE 
By <@ El. TOWNSEND: 
HE history of the world’s seal fisheries is largely one of 
wasted resources. Very few sealing industries have been 
conducted according to methods calculated to perpetuate the race. 
From a commercial point of view, seals are the most important 
of the carnivorous animals. As a group they are probably also 
the most abundant of the larger wild mammals at the present 
time. It is doubtful if the herds of bison in America and of 
antelopes in Africa ever exceeded them in point of numbers. 
They are of world-wide distribution. Their pursuit has been 
carried on in the Antarctic as well as in the Arctic, but the 
sealing grounds of the Antarctic regions have long been ex- 
hausted commercially. Although the fur-seal fisheries of the 
North Pacific have received much international consideration 
during recent years, they are not the only seal fisheries of 1m- 
portance. 
Newfoundland Seal—The Newfoundland sealing industry is 
more than one hundred years old. It appears to have reached 
its height about forty years ago, when there were about 400 sail- 
ing vessels and 13,000 men employed. Since that time the catch 
of seals has decreased and has varied from year to year. The 
sailing vessels have been replaced by steamers whose numbers, 
at the present time, vary from twenty to twenty-five and employ 
from 3,000 to 4,000 men. ‘The industry is based on the Green- 
land or harp seal (Phoca groenlandica), which has a very wide 
distribution and is probably the most abundant of any species 
of seal. A small number of hooded seals (Cystophora cristata) 
is included in the annual catch. It is taken upon the Arctic ice, 
from Newfoundland to Baffin Bay, and from Greenland across to 
the perpetual ice fields north of Europe. The greatest catch 
of seals made in one year was in 1844, when the number reached 
nearly 700,000. During the past six years the catch has varied 
from 268,881 to 353,276. The steamers employed are of con- 
siderable size, some of them of 500 tons burden. The seals are 
