REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. ' 261 



thousands of fur-seals. It Lad been chilled to death; not a trace remained of the 

 fat that liad once clothed its body and protected the vital organs within. Since the 

 day that it had escaj^ed from the drive, it had consumed all its fat in the effort to 

 keep warm, and nothing remained but to lie down and die. I opened many alter 

 this, and always discovered the same, but sometimes an additional cause, a fractured 

 skull perhaps. I have even noted those left behind in a drive, and watched them 

 daily, with the same result in many cases. At first they would revel in the ponds or 

 wander among the sand dunes, but in a few days their motions became distinctly 

 slower, the curvature of the spine became lessened; eventually the poor brutes 

 would drag their hind flippers as they moved, and in a few days more become food 

 for the foxes. In every case the fat had disappeared. 



It will be seen also that by this driving process the 2- or 3-year-olds, which are 

 the only ones killed for their skins, are culled out almost completely from the seals 

 which visit these islands, and therefore that very few male seals ever reach a greater 

 age; consequently, there are not enough young bulls growing up to supply even the 

 yearly loss on the rookeries, much less to provide for any increase. 



It should also be thoroughly understood that until a cow seal is 3 years old she is 

 but a cypher so far as natural increase of the rookeries is concerned, and that a male 

 seal must be at least 7 or 8 years old before he can possibly secure a footing on the 

 rookeries. During these 3 and 8 years they have to run the gauntlet of the poachers. 

 If they escape the driving — and this seems impossible — they have their natural ene- 

 mies to encounter, sharks and killer whales, so that taken altogether, nearly every- 

 thing is against this increase. 



Duriug the eight years' minority of the few male seals that have escaped their 

 enemies it is safe, I think, to assume that at least four summers were spent in gettin^g 

 an experience of the drives. Does any one think that they were then capable of 

 filling their proper functions on the rookeries? 



But some one is not satisfied with the accidental landing of the seals on the 

 beaches, from whence they can be easily driven. Along the sea edge of the rook- 

 eries are many email outlying rocks, on which the young male seals congregate in 

 large numbers and survey the rookeries from which they are disbarred by their 

 inferior size and strength. An old bull seal will suffer himself to be slaughtered 

 rather than yield an inch of his chosen location. The cows are so timid that only 

 the greatest exertions of the bulls prevent their being stampeded, while as to the 

 " holluschickie " the sight, even the scent, of a man or strange object will drive them 

 pell-mell instantly into the water. 



The natives have been provided with whistles, and when a boat finds itself near a 

 rookery (and a pretence for its presence is easily found) good use is made of them 

 with a consequent confusion among the seals, and a probable increase in the next 

 morning's drive. And yet a stranger on the islands is bamboozled with the informa- 

 tion that his presence a few yards from the village is fraught with great danger to 

 the Company's interests. 



The breeding seals on the rookeries represent the principal of the sealing industry, 

 while the quota of 100,000 skins taken annually for the past twenty years is the 

 interest on the principal. Owing to poaching and the effects of driving and culliug 

 the principal has become seriously impaired, so that it is no longer possible to pay this 

 large rate of interest. The work on the islands has been directed entirely to collect- 

 ing this interest at any cost. The principal was left to take care of itself. 



The decrease in seal life began about ten years ago; before then it was an easy 

 matter to secure 100,000 skins a-year from St. George's Island, the rookeries 

 189 near the village of St. Paul, and at North-east Point. The rookeries at Pola- 

 vina and Zapadnie were then never driven from. But ten years ago it became 

 absolutely necessary, iu order to secure the full quota of skins, to make drives from 

 these places, and the custom has been continued since, to the great injury of the seal 

 business. 



But these drives from Polavina and Zapadnie, and the decrease in seal life, seem to 

 have been carefully concealed from the Government and others interested in the wel- 

 fare of the seals ; iu fact, it has been strongly put forth in the Reports of the Treasury 

 Agents in charge and elsewhere that the seals have actually greatly increased in 

 numbers; but a comparison of the sketches alone in Mr. Elliott's "Monograph of the 

 Seal Islands," made in 1873-74 and 1876, with the actual condition of affairs at present 

 on the islands, will convince any one that the opinions and Reports of political 

 appointees are almost worthless when dealing with the fate of the fur-seal. 



How can it be otherwise? Their tenure of office exists only with that of the Sec- 

 retary of the Treasury; with every change of that office new men who know nothing 

 of seals are sent up, and these men are entirely dependent on the seal Company even 

 for their passage and board while there. All visitors to the islands are regarded as 

 Interlopers and meddlers. 



It may be interesting for a moment to compare the management of the Russian side 

 of Behriug Sea with our own. Dr. Stejneger, of the National Museum, who has spent 



