FUR SEALS AND THE SEAL FISHERIES. 319 
is possible that there is a sufficient remnant to warrant the belief that the race 
could be reestablished if the islands were properly protected by the Government 
of Mexico. The value of fur-seal skins taken in tropical or semitropical localities 
is, however, small as compared with those from cold climates. 
In all the history of Antarctic sealing there is but one chapter of wise 
management and thought for the future: The Government of Uruguay has, 
throughout all these years, carefully preserved the fur-seal rookeries of Lobos 
Island, at the mouth of La Plata River, inhabited by Arctocephalus australis. 
These small rookeries illustrate the good resulting from the careful protection 
of the seals upon their breeding grounds. Commercial sealing was carried on 
at Lobos Island prior to 1820. ‘The lessees of the island, operating under the 
direction of the Government of Uruguay, placed upon the London market, from 
1873 to 1904, 377,033 skins, or an average of over 13,000 a year, worth in 1901 
$100,000. All these were derived from a single island less than 1 mile in 
length. The following data show the yield of skins from Lobos Island during 
recent years: 1902, 12,922; 1903, 10,994; 1904, 8,349; 1905, 2,025; 1906, 8,398; 
1907, 4,373; 1908, 2,990. The Lobos seals are now menaced by pelagic sealers, 
and some vessels have been seized by the Government of Uruguay. 
In 1888, when in the Straits of Magellan, I found the fur-seal herds of 
that region nearly exterminated by the hunters working among the Fuegian 
Islands. The recent catch from what is called in the trade the Cape Horn region 
is as follows: 1905, 11,190; 1906, 13,628; 1907, 16,786; 1908, 8,262. 
NORTHERN FUR SEALS. 
The history of Robbin Island, in the Okhotsk Sea, is especially noteworthy. 
This island is about 600 yards in length and less than 100 yards in width, and 
yet incomplete records show that more than 60,000 seals have been taken there 
by raiders since 1870. A remnant of this herd has remained annually to repop- 
ulate the rookery, which at the present time contains little more than 1,000 
seals and is protected by the Russian Government. 
The scattered fur-seal rookeries in the chain of volcanic islands stretching 
northward from Japan, known as the Kurils, have also been destroyed by 
raiders during recent years. The history of the extermination of these seals, as 
furnished to the writer by men who engaged in the slaughter, is exceedingly 
interesting. Notwithstanding the fact that raids were made year after year, 
the scattered remnants of the herds still clung to their old breeding grounds. 
The incomplete records at hand show that more than 25,000 seals were taken 
from the Kuril Islands by raiders since 1880. These rookeries were visited by 
the United States Fisheries steamer Albatross in 1897, and all the rookeries 
were found to have been wiped out with the exception of one, upon which there 
