272 ' ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



Eecent erroneous statements in regard to pelagic birth 

 OF FUR SEALS. — Allen, in his History of ISTortli American Pinnipeds 

 (pp, 772-773), quotes a writer Avlio declares that any statement that the 

 fur seal breeds alone on the Pribilof Islands to the exclnsion of all 

 other grounds on the northwest coast of America and Alaska is "pre- 

 posterous, to his mind." This author claims to know, by his "own ijer- 

 soual observation," that the fur seal does "have pups in open ocean off 

 the entrance to Fnca Htraits." On the contrary, I assert that it is a 

 physical impossibility for the Gallorhinus to bring forth its young alive 

 in the water; the pup would sijik like a stone instantly after birth, and 

 the mother be wholly helpless to save it. 



I should not heed this statement of Mr. Swan, reenforced by that of 

 an old sailor, so gravely entered by Allen, were it not for his introduc- 

 tion on the following p?^ge (773) of an innocent announcement of fact 

 by Prof. D. S. Jordan, who by it is nnfortunateiy made to ai)pear in the 

 light of sustaining the idle theory of pelagic birth. Jordan's simple 

 declaration that he had seen a " live fur-seal pup [June 1, 1880] at Cape 

 Flattery, taken from an old seal just killed, showing tliat the time of 

 bringing them forth was just at hand," is correct as far as it goes; but 

 remember that this pup had been alive in its mother's womb for eleven 

 months prior to the day Jordan saw it, and ten days or three weeks 

 later, at the longest, this parent, if undisturbed, would have naturally 

 brought it forth in the fnlluess of time on either St. Paulor St. George, 

 of the Pribilof group. She could have made the journey there in six 

 or seven days easily from Fuca Straits, if she had been pressed to do 

 so by the expiration of her period of gestation. 



Naturally enough, the careful naturalist, like Allen, no matter how 

 able, will be deceived now and then in this manner, by untrustworthy 

 statements made by those who are supposed to know by personal 

 observation of what they affirm. Mr. Swan has passed nearly an 

 average lifetime on the Northwest Coast, chiefly in the waters of Wash- 

 ington Territory, and has rendered to natural science and to ethnology 

 efficient and valuable service by his labor in collecting, and his notes in 

 regard to the Makah Indians of Cape Flattery; hence his erroneous 

 statements above referred to (as to the fur seal) had a i)rima facie 

 weight with Allen, who therefore inserted them, and thus gave the 

 romance an appearance of reality Avhich I can not ])ass by in silence. 

 The other, though hesitating, authority, Charles Bryant, is an old 

 mariner, who has also been well situated by virtue of eight years' resi- 

 dence on St. Paul Island; he ought to know better. 



Original source of error in regard to nubility of female 

 FUR SEALS. — Veniaminov: Zapieskie, ob Oonalashkenskaho Otdayla: 

 Veniaminov little dreamed, as he labored over his queer calculations in 

 1834, that the then depleted rookeries of the Pribilof Islands would 

 have yielded, from 1808 to date, an annual average of more than three 

 times 32,000 fur seal skins; wJiicli number he at that time deemed the 

 maximum limit of their ultimate production, should his tabulated 

 advice be carried out. Is it not exceedingly strange that he never 

 thought, during all his cogitations over this problem, of the real vital 

 j)riuciple — of letting the females entirely alone — of sparing them 

 strictly? I think that the worthy Bishop would have done so had he 

 passed more time on the rookeries hiiuself. I can not iind, however, 

 who the Kussian was that had the good judgment, flrst of all men, to 

 inaugurate a perpetual "zapooska" of the females on the Pribilof 

 Islands ; it was done in 1847^ for the first time, and has been rigidly 



