176 REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONP^RS. 



Whatever may Lave been the detailed history of tlie seal interests on 

 St. Paul in the intervening years, the fact that in 187!) it became neces- 

 sary for the first time to extend the area of driving so as to include 

 Zapadiiie and Polavina rookeries, or the hauling grounds adjacent to 

 them, shows conclusively tliat a great change for the worse had already 

 occurred at that date. This cannot be explained by any theory of the 

 mere reduction in nund)er of redundant young males, for even if it be 

 admitted that seals of this class were to be found in excessive numbers 

 after the slaughter of 18G8 (which is not probable), the normal ratio of 

 such males resulting from any logically permissible killing should have 

 been reached long before this time. 



685. Many years ago, under the Russian regime, a small native set- 

 tlement was situated near the rookery ground of Polavina, and seals 

 were regularly killed there. Traces of this old settlement may still 

 be seen, but it has probably been abandoned since the time of the 

 "Zapooska," or intermission of killing wliich took effect in 1835, at 

 which time most of the "natives" were removed from the Pribyloff 

 Islands. From information gained on the islands, it appears that in or 

 about the year J 879 the salt-house now employed at Polavina Avas first 

 built, and that driving has been annually practised both from Polavimi 

 and Zapadnie ever since, but with much increasing persistency in later 

 years. 



(I8(>. The time at which the decrease in killable seals began to make 

 itself actually apparent in the acknowledged diHiculty in obtaining the 

 annual quota of skins is thus pretty delinitely fixed by circumstances, 

 but other corroborative information with a similar meaning is now not 

 wanting. Colonel J. Murray, Assistant Treasury Agent, in his lvei)ort 

 for 1890, writes: "The whole truth nuist, nevertheless, be told, and that 

 is, that the seals have been steadily decreasing since 1880."* The older 

 and more experienced natives, conversed with on St. Paul Island, after 

 describing the great abundance of seals at the time the United States 

 first took possession of the islands, stated that the decrease became 

 very marked in 1882 or 1883; arriving at these dates by counting back 



from the actual year. 

 119 087. One accessory cause of the decrease so plainly shown at 



this particular time, is perhai)s to be traced in the great mor- 

 tality of young, due to unfavourable weather in 1870, which would 

 naturallv be making itself apparent on the hauling grounds in 1879 or 

 1880. (§817.) 



()S8. It is thus made evident that the decrease of young males, con- 

 stituting the killable class, had reached such proportions as to ham- 

 per the lessees in taking their permitted number of skins, and to dis- 

 quiet the natives, before the pelagic sealing industry had attained any 

 considerable development, and some years before it could, under any 

 valid hypothesis, be supposed to be accountable for any such result. 

 Although three or four schooners were tentatively engaged in pelagic 

 sealing oft" the coast of IJritish Columbia in the years 1879-83, till the 

 year 1883 the fleet did not include nine schooners in all, and the first 

 of these schooners did not enter Behring Sea lyitil 1881. 



(589. The United States sealing fleet, in the corresponding years, was 

 of similar small dimensions, and, though one vessel is known to have 

 sealed in Behring Sea as early as 1881, the aggregate pelagic catch was, 

 comparatively speaking, so small in these years, that it may safely be 

 left out of consideration. 



* Senate, Ex. Doc. No. 49, 5l8t Congress, 2iid. Sossiou, p. 8. 



