THE RUSSIAN FUR-SEAL ISLANDS. 83 



changes. In view of that improbability we can not acceiit a change of habit as the 

 expLmation of certain ])heiioniena unless demonstrated beyond peradventnre, or no 

 other reasonable explanation can be furnished. Much less can we be expected to admit 

 such changes simi)ly upon hearsay evidence or speculations of a general nature. 



Now, for the alleged changes in so far as they have had reference to the habits of 

 the Commander Islands seals. 



The decrease in the number of killable seals on the rookeries has been attributed 

 to their having been driven off to seek other haunts. It is alleged that they are 

 staying at sea and that they are forming rookeries on the Kamtthatkan coast. 



The evidence in support of these contentions are of the most indetinite kind. 

 On a couple of occasions fur-seals are beliered to have hauled out at certain uninhabited 

 rocks on the eastern coast of Kamchatka. In the first place, the accounts are so 

 devoid of details that it is impossible to attach much importance to them. In the 

 second place, granting that fur seals do haul up there occasionally, what scintilla of 

 proof is there that they have not done so always ? ' As a matter of fact, I heard these 

 rumors of fur-seals hauling out on the coast of Kamchatka during my first visit, in 

 1882-83, and I know positively that Captain Sandman contemplated a trip to go in 

 search of the alleged rookeries as far north as the island Karaginski. Nearly the 

 ■whole eastern coast of Kamchatka, for a distance of more than 400 miles, is almost 

 e*itirely uninhabite<l aiid very seldom visited by man. 



The other evidence offered is the fact that lately the sealing schooners have been 

 found taking fnr-seals during the summer months off certain capes in Kamchatka, 

 notably Cape Shipunski. Here the same objection obtains. What i)roof is there that 

 seals might not always have been taken there in summer? ^Moreover, is it certaiu 

 that the seals taken there by the schooners represent the bulk of the "killables" of 

 the islands ? On the contrary, it is pi'obable that these locations of schooners indicate 

 the feeding- grounds of the females, as hinted at in another chapter of this report. 

 Krashenninikof's statement that " none of them are to be seen [on the east coast of 

 Kamchatka] from the beginning of June to the end of August," only relates to the 

 immediate coast itself and not to the open sea, where pelagic sealers make their catches. 



The explanations offered of these alleged, but utterly unproven, changes of 

 habits are diametrically opposed to each other. Those postulating that the regulated 

 driving and killing of the bachelor seals on shore is causing the decrease of seals on 

 the islands, explain that this interference with the seals has led them to seek other 

 haunts— in this case the coast of Kamchatka. There was never any evidence that 

 seals were driven away from any place frequented by them habitually and took up 

 their abode habitually in some other place. Elliott (Monogr. Pribyl., 18S2, p. 109, 

 footnote), it is true, in si)eaking of the "rapacious hunters" that were drawn to the 

 Commander Islands, states as follows: 



They appear, as near as I cau arrive at truths, from the scauty record, * * * to have 

 killed many and harassed the other fur-seals entirely away from the island; so that there was an 

 interregnum lietweeu 1760 an<l 1786, during which time the Russian promyshleniks took no fur-seals, 

 and were utterly at loss to know whithi^r these creatures had fled from the islands of Bering and 

 Copper. When they (the seals) began to revisit their haunts on the Commander islands, I can tind no 

 specific date. » » • j think, therefore, that when the fur-seals on the Commander islands became 



' They apparently did so occasionally more than 1.50 years ago, if Krashenniuikof s statement, 

 that "they seldom come ashore about Kamchatka," means anything. 



