REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 73 



not require to land anywliere, and, as a matter of fact, they very seldom 

 do so. It has frequently been stated that the mating of the male and 

 female must be accomplished on shore, but there is ample proof that 

 tins is not true, and that the male and female come together with equal 

 facility in the water. It is thus evident that the ruling motive for the 

 lauding and sojourn ashore of the seals, is the birth of the young, and 

 that the habit of the males in frequenting the breeding rookeries and 

 seeking the females there after the young have been born has grown up 

 from this or in connection with it. With many animals the male has a 

 function to fulfil on the breeding places in protecting the young, but in 

 this instance tlie males are neither called upon, nor do they show any 

 natural disposition, to exert themselves in this particular direction. 



247. The Commander and Pribyloff Islands when originally discov- 

 ered in 1741 and 1780 respectively, were entirely uninhabited by man; 

 nor has any evidence been found since on either grouy) to show that man 

 had ever previously visited them. With the exception of St. Matthew 

 Island, which, by reason of the late date to which the ice often lingers 

 about its shores, is not suited to become a habitual breeding resort of 

 the fur-seal, these two groups of islands are the only ones in Behring 

 Sea, or, for that matter, in the whole northern ])art of the North Pacific, 

 which were not either peopled by natives or regularly visited by them 

 on their hunting and fishing expeditions. To this cause rather than to 

 any other is to be attributed the fact that these islands became the 

 permanent breeding resorts of the fur-seal. The cool and humid sum- 

 mer climate may doubtless in itself have been congenial to the seal, but 

 in this respect, and also in the temperature of the sea surrounding them, 

 well-marked differences occur as between the two groups, while almost 

 any of the very numerous islands of the Aleutian chain afford surround- 

 ings so similar in the matter of climate that they would undoubtedly 

 have aflbided suitable breeding places if similarly uninhabited. The 

 islands of this chain were, however, then thickly inhabited by the Aleuts, 

 and as the fur-seal, when resorting to and remaining upon the shores dur- 

 ing the breeding season, is practically defenceless and incapable alike 

 of resistance or effective flight, while its flesh and fat are highly prized 

 by all native tribes as food, it is probable that no breediug stations could 

 long be maintained there or on any other lauds similarly i)eopled. 

 Captain Scammou nevertheless states that fur-seals formerly occupied, 

 ill addition to the Pribyloff and Commander Islands, "several of the 

 more isolated points in the Aleutian chain."* He does not, however, 

 jiarticularize further, or say whether he speaks from personal observa- 

 tion, or from what source his information was obtained. 



248. The fact that fur seals of the same species formerly had breeding- 

 places ou such islands as the Farallones of the Californian coast, under 

 climatic conditions perhaps as different as it is easy to imagine, is alone 

 sufficient to show that climate was not the ruling factor in the choice 

 of the Pribyloff' and Commander Islands by the fur-seals of the North 

 Pacific. If further evidence be required it is furnished by the facts 

 relating to the species of fur-seal inhabiting the soutbern hemisphere, 

 which, though differingfrom thatof the North Pacific in structural points, 

 is so similar in habit as to furnish a case in point. Here also it is found 

 that all the notable breeding places or rookeries Avere discovered upon 

 insular lands to which man had never come, and on which, during this 

 critical period of the annual cycle of its life, the fur-seal was also exempt 

 from the attacks of other terrestrial animals to whi<*,li it would have been 



*"Maiiue Mammalia," p. 155. 



