206 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



and rights of Spain. On the 22d of January, 1771, the offers of the 

 King of France were accepted bj^ tlie Court of St. James. On this 

 day the Spanish ambassador at London, Prince Masserano, presented 

 to Lord Rochford a declaration in the name of the King of Spain, 

 saying that His Catholic Majesty, solely desirous of maintaining peace 

 with England, disavowed the acts of violence committed by the gov- 

 ernor of Buenos Ayres, and engaged to restore to His Britannic Maj- 

 esty and his subjects "the port and fort at Egmont, in the Falkland 

 Islands, with all the artillery, stores, and effects, precisely" as they 

 were before the 10th of June, 1770. At the same time, however, this 

 offer of restitution contained the following significant clause: "This 

 contract can not, nor will it in any Avay, affect the question of prior 

 right of sovereignty to the Falkland Islands." 



The treaty op Nootka influenced here. — The expelled Falk- 

 land Islanders were then replaced at Port Egmont, but in 1774 they 

 were abruptly withdrawn by order of their own Government, and 

 these islands were again taken possession of by the Spaniards, who 

 retained their hold until South America became independent. This 

 abandonment of Great Britain provoked the bitterest political debates 

 in Parliament, and feeling ran high all over that country. Deei^ly 

 imbued with this sentiment, Vancouver went out, in 1791, specially 

 charged by the English Government to take possession of the British 

 territory on the northwest coast, according to the articles of the treaty 

 of 1790 between Spain and England, and came to that region in the fol- 

 lowing year. The Spaniards claimed Vancouver's Island then in their 

 own right, and in behalf of the Americans, Captains Gray and Kendrick ; 

 their agent, Seiior Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, was sta- 

 tioned at Nootka Sound; and immediately after Vancouver's arrival, 

 August 12, 1792, the negotiations were commenced, but Quadra could 

 do nothing in behalf of their rights and those of American discoverj^ 

 Vancouver peremptoril}^ refused to entertain the subject. Quadra 

 therefore surrendered "Quadra and Vancouver's Island" to him, 

 under protest, and Avithdrew every sign of Spanish authority from 

 these waters of the North Pacific. 



Thus the disturbances which arose over the abandonment of the 

 Falkland Islands in 1774 worked the loss of that northwest territory 

 to us, through Spain, in 1792. My only regret (after an extended per- 

 sonal residence on Vancouver Island) concerning this whole subject 

 is that, out of all the uproar at the Falklands, nothing definite has 

 been placed on record relative to the numbers and disposition of the 

 fur seal thereon. 



CATALOGUE OF THE MAMMALS OF THE PRIBILOF GROUP. 



[Memoranda of collections made by Henry W. Elliott, Pribilof Islands, 1872 to 1876, inclusive.] 



CANIDiE. 



Vulpes lagopus. Blue or Arctic Fox. Common. 



Blue foxes were also, and are, natives of the Commander Islands. 

 Steller describes their fearlessness when the shipwrecked crew of the 

 St. Peter landed there, November G, 1741. I saw them also at St. 

 Matthew Island. 



In regard to these foxes the Pribilof natives declare that when the 

 islands were first occupied b}^ their ancCvStors, 1786-87, the fur was 

 invariabl}' blue; that the present smoky blue, or ashy indigo color, is 

 due to the coming of white foxes across on the ice from the mainland 

 to the eastward. The white-furred vulpes is quite numerous on the 



