94 EEPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 



vision of nature, whereby a female seal will suckle any young one, the 

 destruetiou of the new-born seals would beconii)lete;" and, again, says: 

 "The cow will suckle any of the young seals, whether her own or not, 

 and this period of nursing continues more or less for about six months," 

 The same statement is made with respect to the tur-seal of the Aus- 

 tralian coast.* 



325. The analogy of other animals has so frequently been cited in 

 this connection that it may be in point to quote from an interesting 

 memorandum furnished by Sir Samuel Wilson, M. P., the eminent Aus- 

 tralian sheep-breeder. He states that it is common and easy to make 

 ewes suckle other ewes' lambs, either by putting the skin of the dead 

 lamb over the new lamb, or by folding together, in hurdles, the strange 

 lamb and the ewe. When the herd is valuable, all ewes are mothered 

 to lambs which have none of their own, and the same is done in the case 

 of twins. Ewes recognize their own lambs by smell. Sometimes a lamb, 

 not her own, may come up on the other side while she is suckling her 

 own lamb, and may, unnoticed by her, suck her for a time. There are, 

 moreover, lambs which go about in this way, and manage to live by 

 what they can steal. This Australian experience is fully borne out by 

 general experience. 



(K.) — Natural Causes of Destruction. 



326. In connection with the general aspects of seal life, and theefiects 

 upon it of commercial killing, it is necessary to remember that it is 

 largely ruled by certain natural events, or phenomena, and that, as in 

 the case of nearly all animals in a state of nature, but a limited proj)or- 

 tion of the whole number of young produced ever attain either to a 

 '•killable" age, or to one of maturity. Thus, in killing a large number 

 of seals annually, a draft is made upon a margin of seal life which has 

 escaped all the other necessarily environing dangers, and which very 

 often must be regarded as a natural reserve in process of being slowly 

 built up in the intervals between irregular and exceptional inroads 

 which may at any time occur, and over which man exercises no possible 

 control. 



327. Thus, on the Pribyloff Islands, one particular instance has been 

 recorded, when, in consequence of the long persistence of field-ice about 

 the islands, the seals were very greatly de])leted. This occurred in 1836, 

 when, according to native count, the number of adult seals on St. Paul 

 Island was reduced to about 4,000, and the greater part of the small 

 number of seals killed in that year consisted of pups. Other, though 

 less disastrous instances, of the same kind have occurred since, and a 

 study of available information respecting the amount and position of the 

 ice in Behring Sea in various years shows that such adverse conditions 

 may recur in any year, though probably seldom with the same intensity 

 as in 1836. 



328. Again, large numbers of pups are often killed before leaving 

 the islands by heavy storms occurring before they are able to swim 

 strongly, and in consequence of which they are dashed against the 

 rocks or upon the beach. Unfortunately, nothing like a comi)lete 

 record has been kept of such occurrences, but Bryant, Maynard, and 



Elliott, in their x^ublished Eeports, all refer, at greater or less 



59 length, to them. One notable oase of this particular kind 



occurred in October 1876,t and Mr. D. Webster informed us that 



* "Prodromes of the Zoology of Victoria," by Sir F. McCoy, F. R. S., Decade 

 VIII, p. 10. 



+ "Mouograpli of North Americau PiuuiDods," p. 397, 



