698 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



figures are only guesses multiplied by assumptions, and his inexact use 

 of tbem declares that he himself attached no greater value to them at 

 the time they weie made. 



Page 101: Mr. Elliott's conclusion here stated as to the perfect safety 

 of land killing is unquestionably-correct, and should never have been 

 questioned by anyone, least of all by himself, as is the case in his 1890 

 report. 



Page 102: The Basking shark (CetorMnns) never killed a fur seal nor 

 any otlier large animal. Mr. Elliott also refers to the Nurse shark 

 {fSomniosxs), which is probably equally innocuous so far as the fur seals 

 are concerned. 



The estimate that half the number of pups return as yearlings can 

 not be far out of the way. At present the number returning as 3-year 

 olds is not far from one-third of the number born. 



Page 103: The course here described as taken by the seals in their 

 migrations is misleading. They do not " s])read themselves over the 

 entire Pacific." That some of them probably become lost and wander 

 about at distances remote from the track of the main herd is true, as 

 the record of observations shows. But the herd as a whole takes a 

 direct course through the Pacific Ocean obliquely to the coast of Calb- 

 fornia. It is probable that the adult males go no farther south than 

 the Gulf of Alaska, and that the young of the year get no farther south 

 than the latitude of Cape Flattery; but the adult females are taken off 

 the coast of southern California within two weeks after their departure 

 from the islands, and hence their course must be direct and rapid. On 

 their return they move slowly back along the American Coast, reaching 

 the passes about the 1st of June, whither they have already been pre- 

 ceded by the adult males and older bachelors. The younger seals of 

 both sexes arrive later, during the latter half of July. 



The Commander Island herd passes down along the coast of Japan 

 and returns on its track. There is no interchange between the two 

 herds, which represent distinct species. As there is about 700 miles 

 distance between them daring the breeding season, so in the course of 

 their migrations there is the entire breadth of the Pacific Ocean between 

 them. 



Page 10-1 : There is no real meaning to the statement that the " aggre- 

 gate of four and five millions of fur seals, as we see them every season 

 on the Pribilof Islands," represents "the maximum limit of increase 

 assigned to them by natural law. The great equilibrium which nature 

 holds in life upon this earth must be sustained at St. Paul as elsewhere." 



This law of equilibrium, reduced to plain language, is simply this: 

 When the annual death rate of a species equals its annual increase its 

 numbers cease to multiply. That the herd actually came to a condition 

 of equilibrium seems to be a fact. This implies a vast destruction of 

 pups, proportionally greater than that which now obtains. The rav- 

 ages of Uncinaria were probably the determining check, and the losses 

 it caused sufticed to hold the herd in equilibrium. When to this great 

 natural loss was added the waste of pelagic sealing, the rapid decline of 

 the herd was inevitable. 



Page 104: The statement that whole windrows of cod and wolf-fish 

 heads bitten off at the nape were washed up on St. George in 1873 is 

 apocryphal. Neither cod nor wolf fish bones have yet been found in 

 the stomach of the fur seal. The fishes in question live on the bottom, 

 in general beyond the reach of these animals, and do not swim in 

 schools. 



The estimate here given of the amount of fish consumed by the fur 



