104 DESTRUCTIOTf OF AQUATIC ANIMAiS. 



reduced in numbers tliat they seem destined soon to follow the 

 sea-cow, unless protected by legislation sti-ingent enough, and a 

 pohce energetic enough, to repress the ardent cupidity of their 

 pursuers. It is a satisfaction to know that since the acquisition 

 of Alaska by the United States, the fur seal which frequents some 

 of the islands in Behring's Straits, has been protected by hmiting 

 the captures by the lessees of these islands to 100,000 males per 

 year. It is said that this restrictive Government contract oper- 

 ates effectually to prevent any diminution in the numbers of this 

 species in those regions. Indeed the monograph of H. W. Elli- 

 ott on T/ie Seal-Islands of Alaska^ published by the Department 

 of the Interior in 1881, seems to put tliis point beyond a doubt. 



The seals, the otter tribe, and many other amphibia which feed 

 almost exclusively upon fish, are extremely voracious, and of 

 course their destruction or numerical reduction must have favored 

 the multiphcation of the species of fish principally preyed upon 

 by them. I have been assured by the keeper of several young 

 seals that, if supphed at frequent intervals, each seal would 

 devour not less than fourteen pounds of fish, or about a quarter 

 of his own weight, in a day. A very intelKgent and observing 

 hunter, who has passed a great part of his hfe in the forest, after 

 carefully watching the habits of the fresh-water otter of the 

 Korth American States, estimates their consumption of fish at 

 about four pounds per day. 



Man has promoted the multiphcation of fish by making war 

 on their brute enemies, but he has by no means thereby compen- 

 sated his own greater destructiveness.* The bhd and beast of 



believed to have destroyed not less than fifty thousand of these animals. They 

 yield about twenty gallons of oil and four or five pounds of ivory each. 



* According to Hartwig, the United Provinces of Holland had, in 1618, three 

 thousand herring busses, and nine thousand vessels engaged in the transport 

 of these fish to market. The whole number of persons employed in the Dutch 

 herring fishery was computed at 200,000. 



In the latter part of the eighteenth century, this fishery was most success- 

 fully prosecuted by the Swedes, and in 1781, the town of Gottenburg alone 

 exported 136,649 barrels, each containing 1,200 herrings, making a total of 

 about 164,000,000 ; but so rapid was the exhaustion of the fish, from this keen 

 pursuit, that in 1799 it was found necessary to prohibit the exportation of 

 them altogether. — Das Leben des Meeres, p. 182. 



In 1855, the British fisheries produced 900,000 barrels, or almost enough to 

 Bupply a fish to every human inhabitant of the globe. 



On the shores of Long Island Sound, the white fish, a species of herring toe 



