REPORT UPON THE INQUIRY RESPECTING FOOD-FISHES AND 

 THE FISHING-GROUNDS. 



By Richard Rathbun, Assistant in Charge, 



FUR-SEAL INVESTIGATIONS. 



Iii accordance with a provision of the sundry civil appropriation 

 bill approved March 3, 1893, it was made incumbent upon the Fish 

 Commissioner to continue, under the direction of the Secretary of the 

 Treasury, the annual investigations relative to the conditions of seal life 

 on the Pribilof Islands, which had then been carried on dining three 

 seasons; and the Commissioner was also charged with the conduct of 

 further observations respecting the life-history and pelagic habits of the 

 fur-seals. The first of the present series of inquiries on the Pribilof 

 Islands was made during the summer of 1890 by Mr. Henry W. Elliott, 

 a special agent of the Treasury Department, appointed under an act of 

 Congress dated April 5 of that year, which provided for a thorough 

 examination into the status of the fur-seal industry on the seal islands 

 of Alaska, so as to make known its relative condition then as compared 

 with 1872. A novel and important feature of Mr. Elliott's work was 

 the construction of a series of maps showing the precise outlines of each 

 of the breeding and hauling grounds. In 1891, and again in 1892, in 

 connection with the preparation of the case of the United States for the 

 Paris tribunal of arbitration, Mr. J. Stanley-Brown, also acting as a 

 special Treasury agent, conducted corresponding observations, including 

 the delineation of rookery areas occupied by seals, for the convenience 

 of which purpose a set of base maps was prepared and lithographed. 

 An innovation on the part of Mr. Stanley-Brown was the photographing 

 of characteristic parts of each of the rookeries, in order to illustrate 

 graphically the distribution and abundance of the seals upon them. 



The summer of 1892 was the last preceding the meeting of the Paris 

 tribunal, and the object in still further continuing the examinations 

 was to provide for maintaining a record of all subsequent changes in 

 the condition of the rookeries, especially under the operations of the 

 Paris award, which had not, however, at that date been concluded. It 

 was, therefore, made a part of the mission of the steamer Albatross 

 to repeat the observations of Messrs. Elliott and Stanley-Brown, the 

 naturalist of the steamer, Mr. C. H. Townsend, who had had consider 

 able previous experience withthe matter, being specially charged with 

 the conduct of this work. He was stationed at the islands from July 

 11 to August 18, 1893, and was assisted in the photographic work by 

 F. r. 91 6 bl 



