RAIDS ON ROOKERIES NOT THE CAUSE. 299 



the number of seals killed was comaratively very small and liad no ap- 

 preciable effect upon seal life. 



Sometimes they try to land on the rookeries, but 

 we drive them off with guns and they never get Nlcoli KruJcoff, p. 133. 

 many seals that way. 



I do not mean to say that the seals were injured because a few were 

 killed on the rookeries, when men from schooners 

 landed on the islands in the night or when the fog Aggie Kushen, /». 128. 

 was very thick, for the numbers killed in that 



way never amounted to much, as it is not often the raiders can land on 

 a rookery and escape with their plunder. 



When on a raid we would watch for a favorable opportunity to make 

 a landing, and then kill male and female fur-seals 

 indiscriminately. Probably for every r>00 market- /. M. Lenard, p. 217. 

 able skins secured, doable that number of pups 

 were destroyed. 



While I was on the island there were not more than three or four 

 raids on the rookeries to my knowledge, and I 

 think that the destruction to seal life by raiding j. p. Loud, p. 39. 

 rookeries is a small part of 1 percent as compared 

 with the numbers taken by killing in the water. 



It is often difficult to entirely prevent poaching on the islands, al- 

 though in my judgment it has not been of suffi- 

 cient importance on the Commander Islands to jno. Malowansky, p. 197, 

 have any perceptible influence in the diminution 

 of the herd. 



I remember seeing an occasional sealing schooner in Bering Sea as 

 long ago as 1878, but it was in 1884 they came in 

 large numbers. At first it was supposed they in- a. Melovedoff, p. 143. 

 tended to raid the rookeries, and we armed a num- 

 ber of men and kept guard every night, and we drove off any boats we 

 found coming to a rookery. Sometimes in a dense fog or very dark 

 night they landed and killed a few hundred seals, but the numbers 

 taken in this manner are too small to be considered. 



One cause of destruction is raiding, which has been done upon the 

 shores of the islands. A half dozen such raids 

 are known to me personally; but while it is not t.F. Morgan, p. 65. 

 possible for me to state with certainty the skins 



actually secured by such raids, I believe that, although such raiding is 

 detrimental, its injurious effect as compared with the disastrous results 

 of pelagic sealing is insignificant. 



There were only, as I recollect, four raids on the islands while I was 

 there; but little or no damage was done, and seal 

 life was not perceptibly affected by such maraud- j, h. Moulton,p. 72. 

 ing. 



From my personal knowledge of the number of seals killed upon the 

 Pribilof Islands by raids upon the rookeries dur- 

 ing my residence there, and from information s. B. Nettleion, p. 76. 

 gained through other sources, I conclude that the 



