370 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



Upon this same basis of estimation/ less than 300,000 pups were born 

 upon the Pribilov rookeries last year, 1889, but not more than 70,000 to 

 80,000 of them returned to these islonds in 1890, since their statural 

 enemies are as numerous and as active as ever in the sea, while the surplus 

 store of seal life upon which these enemies drew in 1872, as they draw 

 now, has been rapidly diminishing during the last six years. Touching 

 this question in 1874, I said then : 



These fur seals of the PribiloT group, after leavingthe islands in the autumn and early 

 winter, do not visit land again until the time of their return in the following spring 

 and early summer to these same rookery and hauling grounds, unless they touch, as 

 they are navigating their lengthened journey back, at the Eussian Copper and Bering 

 islands, 700 miles to the westward of the Tribilov group. They leave the islands by 

 independent squads, each (me looking out for Itself. Apparently all turn by common 

 consent to the south, disappearing toward the horizon, and are soon lost in the vast 

 expanse below, where they spread themselves over the entire North Pacific as far 

 south as the forty-eighth and even the forty-seventh parallels of north latitude. 

 Over the immense area between Japan and Oregon doubtless many extensive sub- 

 marine fishing shoals and banks are known to them. At least it is definitely under- 

 stood that Bering Sea does not contain them long when they depart from the breeding 

 rookeries and the hauling grounds therein. While it is carried in mind that they 

 sleep and rest in the water with soundness and with the greatest comfort on its 

 surface, and that even when around the land during the summer they frequently put 

 off from the beaches to take a bath and a quiet snooze just beyond the surf, we can 

 readily agree that it is no inconvenience whatever — the reproductive functions hav- 

 ing been discharged and their coats renewed — for them to stay the balance of the time 

 in their most congenial element, the briny deep. 



That these animals are preyed upon extensively by killer whales" (Orca gladiator), 

 and by sharks,^ and probably other submarine foes now unknown, is at once evi- 

 dent, for were they not held in check by some such cause they would, as they exist 

 to-day on St. Paul, quickly multiply, by arithmetical progression, to so great an 

 extent that the island, nay Bering Sea itself, could not contain them. The present 

 annual killing of 100,000 out of a yearly total of over 1,000,000 males does not, in an 

 appreciable degree, diminish the seal life or interfere in the slightest with its regu- 



be put, and to give the seals the full benefit of every doubt. Surely, I have clearly 

 presented the case, and certainly no one will question the premises after they have 

 studied the habit and disposition of the rookeries. Hence it is a positive and tenable 

 statement that no dangei of the slightest appreciable degree of injury to the inter- 

 ests of the Government on the seal islands of Alaska exists as long as the present 

 law protecting it and the management executing it continues. 



' Eight at this point, in 1890, 1 realize the paramount importance of keeping a much 

 larger surplus male life in reserve than I did in 1874. I see its necessity now: by 

 reducing the male life to the figures which I thought were safe in 1874, I would 

 only prevent that constant fighting among the sires on the rookery, which is abso- 

 littehj necessary for the best perpetuation of the race — that struggle of the fittest to sur- 

 vive as the progenitors of the herd. Man can not interfere here with these wildest 

 of wild animals: animals which he can not feed or control in the slightest degree, 

 he can not breed as he can cattle, sheep, or hogs. 



-Orca (jladiator. — While revolving this particular line of inqxiiry in my mind when 

 on the ground and among the seals, I involuntarily looked constantly for some sign 

 of disturbance in the sea which would indicate the presence of an enemy ; and, save 

 seeing a few examples of the Orca, I never detected anything. But the killer whale 

 is common here : it is patent to the most casual eye, Ijecause it is the habit of this 

 ferocious cetacean to swim so closely at the surface as to show its peculiar sharp, 

 dorsal fin high above the water. Possibly a very superficial observer could and 

 would confound the long, trenchant fluke of the Orca with the stubby node upon the 

 spine of the humpback whale, which that animal exhibits only when it is about to 

 dive. Humpbacks feed around the islands, but not commonly — they are the excep- 

 tion. They do not, however, molest the seals in any manner whatever; and little 

 squads of these pinnipeds seem to delight themselves by swimming in endless circles 

 around and under the huge bodies of those whales, frequently leaping out and 

 entirely over the cetacean's back ! as witnessed on one occasion by myself and the 

 crew of the Reliance, off the coast of Kadiak, June, 1874. 



^ Somniosus microcephalus. — Some of these sharks .are of very large size, and when 

 caught by the Indians of the northwest coast, basking or asleep on the surface of 

 the sea, they will, if transfixed by the natives' harpoons, take a whole fleet of canoes 

 in tow and run swiftlv with them several hours before exhaustion enables tke 



