THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 117 



alone, at the place where the skin was removed and the foot cut off just back of the carpal joint, that corresponds 

 to our wrist. This animal was very fat, and its head was scarred all over with wounds, evidently received in 

 fighting with its kind. No worms were found in the intestines and stomach; the liver was speckled with light 

 grayish-green clots, and normal. Many of them were seen grazing and rooting like hogs on a common. 



Fitful sleep op bears. — They sleep soundly, but fitfully, rolling their heavy arms and legs about as they 

 doze ; for naps they seem to prefer little grassy depressions on the sunny hill-sides and along the numerous 

 water-courses; and their paths were broad and well beaten all over the island. "We could not have observed less 

 than 250 or 300 of these animals while we were there ; at one landing on Hall island there were 1G, scampering up 

 and off from the approach of the ship's boat, at one sweep of our eyes. 



Fur-seals cannot land here. — The chief attraction to these bears, undoubtedly, at St. Matthew, is the 

 walrus herds ; and the island's special adaptation by its position to a possibility of its ever being resorted to by 

 the fur-seal, was the reason of my visit ; and, the result of my careful examination shows conclusively that the 

 character of tbe gravel spits and necks which are the only landing-grounds offered, is such as not to be fit for the 

 reception of breeding seals, as they would be speedily converted by them into a sheet of mud and slime ; and there 

 is no other ground presented save at the base of cliffs everywhere rising up from the sea. Seals, also, if they could 

 laud here independent of this polar-bear scourge, which owns and controls St. Matthew, would find a climate 

 that keeps snow and ice on the beaches until late in June, and still later; hence, I am well satisfied that the 

 fur-seals have never visited this desolate land, nor will they ever rest upon it.* 



24. DIGEST OF THE DATA IX REGARD TO THE FUR-SEAL EOOKEEIES OF THE SOUTH ATLANTIC 

 AND PACIFIC, AND NUMBER OF SKINS TAKEN THEREFROM. 



Difficulty of finding credible records. — Before I introduce the reader to this subject, I desire to call 

 his attention to the source from which nearly all the information which we have touching it is derived. It comes 

 from the verbal and written statements of whalers and other sea-faring men. The great difficulty which faces me 

 as I attempt to make up this digest from such authority, is the fact that I know the failing of sailors too well — am 

 too conversant with their habits of loose and positively erroneous narration. For instance, as an illustration of this 

 trouble: suppose A had taken a large cargo of fur-seal skins from the Crozette islands some time in 1820-25, and 

 when on the homeward stretch had been met at sea by B, another whaler or sealer; A would invariably tell B, in 

 answer to queries as to where he got his catch, that he secured the seals at any other island far away from the 

 real source of supply, in order that he might turn B aside, and have a clear field, and a full ship at the Crozettes 

 again, when he should discharge at home and return. The story, however, would probably get into circulation, 

 and into print, perhaps; and to-day is misleading us, just as it did B long ago. 



Scanty records. — If anybody doubts the correctness of my statement, made in the prefatory words of this 

 monograph, to wit, that, though a sealing fleet of hundreds of vessels and thousands of men had repaired to the 

 rookeries of the southern oceans, and had annually returned laden with the skins of the Arctoccphalus, still not a 

 definite line as to the true result, i. c, the number of skins taken from those great Antarctic breeding-grounds, 

 can be found in any writing, let him turn to the laborious work of Allen, who, for eight or nine long years, has 

 ransacked the writings and the musty records of a century back; and see iu his history of the North American 

 pinnipeds the pitiful sum of knowledge which he has gathered in regard to the subject.! Prior to the tedious 

 research and publication just referred to, in looking toward the same end, I gathered substantially as much 

 information in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and in Hamilton's Amphibious Mammalia.% But the amount of this 

 information is so abortive and faulty that I hesitate to reprint it here; yet, perhaps, its republication, together with 

 the equally brief aud indefinite compilation of Allen, may draw out from some unexpected quarter further knowledge. 

 Hence, I submit the following: 



DESTRUCTION OF THE FUR-SEALS FOR THEIR PELTRIES. 



The value of the peltries of the fur-seal has led to wholesale destruction, amounting, at some localities, almost to extermination. 

 The traffic in their skins appears to have begun toward the end of the last century. Captain Fanning, of the ship Betsey, of New York, 

 obtained a full cargo of choice fur-seal skins at the island of Masafuera, on the coast of Chili, in 1738, which he took to the Cauton market. 

 Captain Fanning states that on leaving the island, after procuring his cargo, ho estimated there were still left on the island between 

 500,000 and 700,000 fur-seals, and adds that subsequently little less than a million of fur-seal skins were taken at (he island of Masafuera 

 alone, \S a small islet of not over twenty-five miles in circumference, and shipped to Canton. || Captain Scammou states that the sealing- 

 fleet off the coast of Chili, in 1801, amounted to thirty vessels, many of which were ships of the larger class, and nearly all carried the 

 American flag. Notwithstanding this great slaughter, it appears that fur-seals continued to exist there as late as 1815, when Captain 

 Fanning again obtained them at this island. H 



*Tbis survey made by Lieutenant Maynard and myself is the first careful exploration of the island ; the only work hitherto done was 

 the approximate charting of its coast from the decks el' ( loafs and Billings' and Bering's vessels. Maynard and myself made a detailed 

 plotting of the island, and gave a copy to the United States Coast Survey iu August, 1874. 



1 Allen: History North American Pinnipeds, 1880, pp, 229,230, 



} Edinburgh, 1839. 



§ Fanning: T'oi/aycs to thi South Sea, etc, pp. 117, 118. Allen : North American Pinnipeds, 



\\Ib., p. 364. 



H lb., p. 299. 



