THE RUSSIAN FUR-SEAL ISLANDS. 95 



STATISTICS. 



Having thus given a brief resume of the liistory of the fur-seal industry on tlie 

 Eussian side, as it is revealed in the scanty records, it may be well to present, in 

 clironological order, such statistics as I have been able to bring together showing the 

 number of fur-seals taken at various times on the Commander Islands. Unfortunately, 

 many of the figures submitted are only hypothetical, some even highly problematical, 

 but I have accompanied them with a running comment which it is hoped is sutticiently 

 explicit to show how the estimates were made. 



It is not probable that any great slaughter of the fur-seals took place during the 

 first period. Uassof and Trapeznikof returned from the Commandei' Islands in 1746 

 with a cargo of furs, among which are mentioned li,000 fur-seals (Bancroft, Works, 

 XXXIII, p. 100), but in the returns of the other expeditions l)etweea 1743 and 1750 

 no other mention of seal skins is made. As sea-otters and blue foxes are mentioned 

 freipiently, it is evident that the fur-seal skins were of but little importance and value. 

 It is also probable that in those days only the i)ups were taken, for it is specifically 

 stated that Yugof's cargo of fur-seals, when the vessel returned in 175-4 from Copper 

 Island, consisted of l,7(i5 black pups and 447 gray ones (Neue Naclir. Neuent. Ins., 

 1770, p. 22). Tolstykh, likewise, in 1750 returned from Bering Island with 840 

 "young fur-seal skins or l:otlkV'' (ibid., p. 26), and Vorobief in 1752 is said to have 

 brought to Kamchatka, probably from the Commander Islands, "5,700 black and 1,310 

 gray young fur-seals or kotihi'" [ibid., p. 27). Drushinin in 1755 returned witli 2,500 

 seals taken on Bering Island (ibid., p. 32). These, as well as the 2,000 brought by the 

 Vlndivi ir in 1767 and the 630 in Popof 's loann Fretecha in 1772, were also piobably young. 



As I have shown elsewhere (Amer. Natural., xxi, Dec, lS87,p. 1053), the sea-cow 

 on the Commander Islands had become nearly extinct in 1703. The sea-otter had 

 also been killed oft' there to such an extent that the hunt had become unprofitable, 

 and the blue foxes likewise. As the fur-seal skins were of comparatively little value, 

 there were no inducements for the fur-hunters to visit the islands after that time as 

 frequently as before. It is certain enough, as shown above, that the fur-seals had not 

 left the Commaiuler Islands, or become nearly extinct there, as alleged by Elliott, as 

 theie are records of vessels having actually visited the islands between 1760 and 1786, 

 bringing plenty of seal skins back. As a matter of fact, it was during this very period 

 that the heaviest slaughter of fur-seals took place on the Commander Islands. It 

 appears that Shelikof was the first trader to deal extensively in fur-seals, and his 

 name is not mentioned until 1776. It is stated that up to 1780, consequently in four 

 years, he had imported 70,000 fur-seal skins. It is furthermore stated that his vessel, 

 8v. lounn Rylskoi, returned in 1786 with 18,000 fur-seals. In the same year Protassof 

 returned with a "cargo consisting chiefly of fur-seals." Pauof's vessel, Sv. Georgi, 

 which also returned in 1786, had less lack, having secured only 1,000 seal skins. As 

 tlie Pribylof Islands were not discovered until that year (the first cargo from there did 

 not arrive in Okhotsk until 1789), the bulk of the fur-seal skins brought to Kamchatka 

 must have come from Commander Islands (see Bancroft, Works, xxxiii, pp. 185-191). 

 There is rwon/ of about 100,000 skins having been taken between 1760 and 1786, while 

 from 1746 to 1760 the skins brought to Kamchatka probably did not exceed 20.000. 



For the early times, between the return of the first cargo from the Pribylof Islands 

 to 1S41, the year of the expiration of the second term of the Russian-American 

 Company, there are absolutely no accessible records as to the number of seals taken at 



