SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE. 291 



would only be consistent with an approval of the methods in use on 

 the land. Between this Scylla and this Charybdis a way of escape 

 must be found and it was found. The ingenuity here displayed de- 

 serves full notice and acknowledgment. The Joint Report contains this 

 statement: 



We find that since the Alaska purchase a marked diminution in the 

 number of seals on and habitually resorting to the Pribilof Islands 

 has taken place, that it has been cumulative in effect and that it is the 

 result of excessive killing by man. 



Bearing in mind that the fur-seals forming the object of this contro- 

 versy have no other home or land than the Pribilof Islands, and that 

 the British Commissioners themselves concede that they, for the most 

 part, breed on those islands; bearing in mind, too, that these gentlemen 

 have not yet discovered any other summer habitat for the seals it 

 would seem that this declaration is equivalent, in its fair sense and 

 meaning, to a statement that the fur-seals that frequent the American 

 coast and the Bering Sea hare suffered a marlced decrease. 



Perhaps it was so intended by the British as it was by the United 

 States Commissioners; but if so, the former gentlemen have lost sight 

 of their original intention and have been led to nice distinctions, which 

 we shall now examine. 



That the seal, although "essentially pelagic" (Sec. 26), has not yet 

 learned to breed at sea is not denied, although to the vision of the 

 Commissioners the prospect of such a transformation or evolution is 

 evidently not very remote. We must, in justice to them, quote one 

 siugle passage which admirably illustrates the complacency and self- 

 confidence with which they wrest to their own purposes, with unhesi- 

 tating violence, the laws of nature and the mysteries of ulterior 

 evolution. If this quotation does not give a just idea of the imagina- 

 tive powers of these officials nothing but a perusal of the whole of 

 their work will do them justice: 



The changes in the habits and mode of life of the seals naturally 

 divide themselves into two classes, which may be considered separately. 

 The first and most direct aud palpable of these is that shown in the 

 increased shyness and wariness of the animal, which, though always 

 pelagic in its nature, has been forced by circumstances to shun the land 

 more than before, so that, but for the necessity imposed upon it of seeli- 

 ing the shore at the season of birth of the young, it might probably ere this 

 have become entirely pelagic. 



Au animal "always pelagic," forced by circumstances to shun the land 

 more than before, and which would become entirely pelagic long before 



