Townscnd. — Legislation Affecting the Fur Seal 135 



males is against all biological experience. No breeder of 

 polygamous animals does anything of the sort. 



The wastefulness resulting from this vicious amendment 

 is not really as serious as its intent to fix responsibility for 

 the condition of the herd upon the Government, instead of 

 on the pelagic sealers, who prey upon the female portion 

 of the herd, and who alone are responsible for its present 

 reduced condition. 



DISCUSSION 



Prof. L. L. Dyche, Kansas : I do not know as I can add any- 

 thing to this excellent paper. It gives me pleasure to endorse every- 

 thing Mr. Townsend has said in his discussion of the subject. I was 

 in Washington and appeared before a Senate Committee and some 

 members of Congress and expressed myself in rather vigorous terms 

 along lines so splendidly set forth in this paper. It is hard to under- 

 stand why Congress could not be made to understand the real and true 

 condition of the fur seal situation as presented by scientific men and 

 naturalists who have given years to the study of the problem. About 

 the only way it can be accounted for is that certain parties have spent 

 a great deal of time in lobbying with members and misrepresenting the 

 real situation and the real conditions on the Pribilof Islands. 



I have spent several months on the coast of Alaska and have some 

 knowledge of the fur seals, and I think I understand the situation as 

 naturalists understand it who have been up there and studied it for 

 years. When it comes to getting a law passed in favor of the seal 1 

 industry and in favor of conditions that would promote the welfare of 

 the seals themselves and that would save a great amount of money to 

 our own Government and be fair to other governments concerned, 

 and be absolutely fair to all conditions of seal life, it seems almost: 

 impossible to make Congress comprehend the situation. This seemed 

 to be especially the situation during the session of Congress last spring. 

 The mixed condition of things at that time seemed to have been brought 

 about by a heavy lobby against the real interests of the seal herd and 

 the real financial interests of this country. It was freely rumored at 

 Washington that certain interests with ulterior and selfish motives were 

 figuring against the interests of the seal herd and the interests of the 

 Government, and were working for the passage of this bill. It would 

 seem that there are certain parties formerly engaged in certain kinds 

 of seal business who have hopes of getting and keeping a loose-jointed 

 law on the books that would permit of a loose-jointed business being 

 carried on in the "seal fisheries." A law would suit them that would 

 make it possible to stir up some sort of feeling with England or Japan 

 that would lead to pelagic sealing in one form or another. Such a 



