222 Fortieth Annual Meeting 



equipment on the islands; and that matter is being adjusted 

 now, an effort being made to arrive at an equitable price or 

 figure for the company's property. 



The United States must also furnish a school teacher on 

 each island ; that it must furnish a doctor on each island, 

 and that is being done. 



Congress went a little further and provided a resident 

 naturalist for the seal islands and we have sent up such a 

 man now. That is a new step entirely. Many think, with 

 reason, that the fur seal question, so far as the management 

 of the herd on the islands is concerned, is largely, perhaps 

 almost wholly, a natural history question; that the herd 

 should be handled and managed in an intelligent way just 

 as a man who has large stock interests, cattle or sheep or 

 hogs, would act wisely in giving that herd or flock the most 

 expert care that he could give it; that he would employ a 

 man who knows how to handle stock, who is interested in 

 the breeding of stock and who knows the things that ought 

 to be done in order to secure the highest degree of efficiency 

 and productiveness in that flock or herd. 



We hope to do something of that kind with the naturalist 

 who has gone to the islands, so far as the fur seals are 

 concerned ; to study them from the point of view of natural 

 history and stock breeding. 



Hundreds of interesting questions of course open up 

 when we begin to consider that question. Can anything 

 be done in the way of selective breeding; can the herd be 

 improved by that means; can anything be done in the way 

 of feeding or in the way of improving the physical and 

 biological condition on the various rookeries? 



There is on each island a herd of blue foxes, and the blue 

 fox skin is quite as valuable as the fur seal skin. On St. 

 George the number is considerable. The number taken 

 each year now is inconsiderable compared with the number 

 taken in past years ; but there is no reason why the blue 

 fox herd on St. George may not be increased to the same 

 degree of productiveness which it at one time had; and 



