REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 113 



favourite haunts for several successive years, tbey are quite sure to 

 seek some distant and uuknowu place, where they cau congregate 

 unmolested by man."* 



400. It is doubtless in consequence of this fact, as already pointed 

 out, that the Pribyloff and Commander Islands bad long ago become 

 the special resorts of tlie fur-seal of the ISTorth racitic, and to the same 

 cause must be attributed the abandonment of other breeding grounds 

 formerly frequented by this animal, as well as the attempts to take up 

 new rookeries which have been mentioned when describing the facts of 

 seal life along the western shores of the North Pacific. 



401. As above stated, nearly all the pelagic sealers concur in the 

 opinion that the fur-seal is annually becoming more shy and wary at 

 sea. They add that this is most ap])arent in that part of the east side 

 of the North Pacific to the south of the Aleutian Islands, but that it 

 is becoming equally marked in the eastern part of Behring Sea; while 

 in the western part of the sea, where pelagic sealing has as yet been 

 scarcely practised, the seals do not show tlie same fear of boats, and 

 are more easily approached. It is thus evident that greater skill and 

 caution is annually required on the part of the pelagic hunters, and on 

 the assumption that the number of seals met with at sea has remained 

 the same in proportion to area of surface, the statistics quoted on a 

 later page respecting the catch made in relation to each boat employed, 

 would appear to show that the dexterity of the hunters has increased, 

 par i passu, with the wariness of the seals. 



402. The facts observed by the pelagic sealers in regard to the abun- 

 dance or otherwise of seals at sea have important bearings on the gen- 

 eral question of the whole number of seals now or in recent years 

 inhabiting the North Pacific, and also when taken in conjunction with 

 the reduction in numbers on the breeding islands, in evidencing the 

 changes in habits here specially referred to. The general tenor of the 

 whole of the evidence to be obtained on this particular subject, whether 

 directly by ourselves or from other sources, shows that though changes 

 in position are noticed from year to year, no decrease in numbers has 

 occurred at sea, while an actual increase is m many cases reported. 

 This circumstance of the continued abundance of seals at sea in the 

 whole tract of ocean frequented by the pelagic sealers is so notable, 

 and at the same time so entirely opposed to some loose general state- 

 ments as to diminution which have found currency, that some evidence 

 relating to it may pro])erly be adduced. 



403. In 1889, Captain J. O. Warren, whose experience is entirely 

 pelagic, as he has never been within sight of the Pribyloff Islands, 

 says: "I have noticed no diminution in the number of seals during the 

 twenty years I have been in the business, but if any change at all an 

 increase."t Captain W. O'Leary says, in the same year: "I do not, 

 think there is any decrease in the number of seals entering Behring 

 Sea. I never saw so many seal along the coast as there were this year, 

 and in Behring Sea they were more numerous than I ever saw them 

 before."! In the following year Mr. A. K. Milne, Collector of Customs 

 at Victoria, after detailing his inquiries made from jielagic sealers, 

 says: "I can now safely repeat what I have already said and written, 

 that owners and masters do not entertain the slightest idea that the 

 seals are at all scarce." § 



* "Marine Mammalia," p. 152. 



,t Parliamentary Paper [C. 6131], p. 356. London, 1890. 



t Ibid., p. 357. 



§ Parliamentary Paper [C. 6253]. London, 1800. 



B S, PT VI S 



