Part I. 

 SUMMARY OF FACTS AND CONCLUSIONS. 



I. — The Former, Present, and Prospective Condition ov the 

 Fur-seal Fishery in the North Pacific Ocean. 



(A.) — General Conditions of Seal Life. 



fuSi' "' "'"^ ^^' The fur-seal of the North Pacific Ocean is an animal 

 in its nature essentially pelagic, which, during the greater 

 part of each year, has no occasion to seek the land, and 

 very rarely does so. For some portion of the year, however, 

 it naturally resorts to certain littoral breeding jdaces, wliere 

 the young are brought forth and suckled on land. It is 

 gregarious in habit, and, though seldom found in defined 

 schools or compact bodies at sea, congregates in large num- 

 bers at the breeding places. Throughout the breeding sea- 

 son, the adults of both sexes — if not entirely, at least, for 

 very considerable periods — abstain from food, but during 

 the i^emainder of the year the seals are notably infiuenced 

 in their movements by those of the food-fishes upon which 

 they subsist. 

 Migrations. 27. Sucli movcments are, however, subordinate to a more 

 general one of migration, in conformity with which the fur- 

 seals of the North Pacific travel northward to the breeding 

 islands in the spring and return to the southward in the 

 autumn, following two main lines, one of which approxi- 

 mates to the western coast of North America, while the 

 other skirts the Asiatic coast. Those animals which pursue 

 the first- mentioned migration-route, for the most part breed 

 upon the Pribylotf Islands in summer, and sjoend the win- 

 ter in that part of the ocean adjacent to, or lying oft", the 

 coast of British Columbia, Those following the second 

 route breed, in the main, on the Commander Islands, and 

 winter off' the coasts of Japan. The comparative proximity 

 of the breeding islands frequented by the seals pertaining 

 to these two migration-tracts during the summer insures a 

 certain interrelation and interchange of seals between the 

 two groups, to an extent not fully known, and which 

 doubtless varies much in different years. 

 'Winter anil US. The fur-scal of the North Pacific may thus be said, in 



'rnt.s""^' ' '" " each case, to have two habitats or homes between which it 

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