FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY. 89 



SPECIMENS FOR SCIENTIFIC PURPOSES. 



In 1919 there were collected for the California Academy of Sciences, 

 at San Francisco, a number of specimens of fur seals ior its use in 

 completing a fur-seal habitat group which is one of an elaborate 

 series of groups installed at the academy's museum illustrative of 

 natural history. The material included 3 adults from St. Paul Island 

 and 3 adults and 13 pups from St. George Island. All the seals 

 involved were animals found dead, with the exception of two acci- 

 dentally killed on St. George Island. The appraised value of the 

 collection was $43, which amount was paid by the academy and 

 transmitted to the disbursing clerk of the Department for deposit in 

 the United States Treasury. 



FOXES. 



The fox herds are a very important feature of the Bureau's opera- 

 tions on the Pribilof Islands. They produce considerable revenue 

 for the Government each year, and the natives profit through pay- 

 ments made to them for taking the pelts. The revenue represents 

 real production, for unless the herds were fostered by the Bureau's 

 activities they would be reduced almost if not quite to the vanishing 

 point. Wliile the foxes would be able to subsist through the summer 

 season on birds and other sources of food which they are able to 

 secure unaided by man, few would survive the winter were seal 

 meat not provided. 



The fox herd is much larger on St. George Island than on St. Paul 

 Island, at least the annuals are apparent in larger numbers and the 

 take of pelts each year is much greater. On St. George the feeding 

 of foxes has been reduced to a system, on St. Paul it has not, but the 

 matter is receiving very careful consideration. Natural and other 

 factors on St. George have been much more favorable for controlling 

 conditions than on St. Paul. In the matter of taking pelts, control 

 of the food supply during the winter is almost as important as the 

 supply itself. On St. George Island the beaches where foxes may 

 resort for food are few and limited in extent. The seal-killing fields 

 are limited to two, and both being small and close to the sea are easily 

 cleaned of seal carcasses. The result is that the foxes are obliged to 

 come to certain places for food put out for them. The food given 

 them consists of seal carcasses saved from the killings of the preceding 

 summer. The foxes accustomed to coming to certain places for food 

 are easily induced to enter wire inclosures where the selection of those 

 to be killed and of those to be released as breeders is a simple matter. 



On St. Paul Island the open beaches are of considerable extent; 

 the seal-killing fields are more numerous and some so situated that 

 the removal of carcasses would be more difficult and has not been 

 undertaken. It should be noted that foxes will feed in the winter 

 season on seal carcasses left on the killing fields since the preceding 

 summer. The absence of control of food supply in the winter on St. 

 Paul makes it necessary there to capture them in steel traps. A fox 

 once caught in a steel trap must be killed, and the selection of animals 

 for the future breeding stock is an impossibility. From the stand- 

 pomt of selecting breeders, the beneficial results of being able to 

 observe the herd practically as a whole and to handle the mdividuals 

 is strikingly shown in one way by the almost entire elimination of 



