96 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



or shipped from the Commauder Islands. Elliott states (Monogr. Pribyl. Group, p. 

 70) that from 1797 to 1.S6I the statistics of skins taken from the Pribylof Islands 

 include "about 5,(100 annually iiom the Commander Islands," but 1 have reasons for 

 believing that this statement is erroneous. As I liave shown elsewhere, there was no 

 regular population on the Commander Islands until after 182(!, and as vessels touched 

 at the islands at great intervals only, an annual catch of 5,000 skins from the Com- 

 mander Islands is oat of the question. This is also plain from the tigures given by 

 Veniaminof and Von Wrangell. The former, according to the table i)resented by the 

 British Bering Sea commissioners (Kep., p. 13l!), gives the total number of seals killed 

 on the Pribylof Islands from 1826 to 1832, inclusive, as 137,503. This agrees fairly 

 well with the statement by Baron von Wrangell, the chief manager of the Russian- 

 American Company during that period, that tlie total number of skins exported from 

 the colonies from 1827 to 1833 amounted to 132,1(!0. This number is clearly meant to 

 include all the skins exported from the whole colony, and would include any and all 

 from the Commander Islands, if skins were then taken there, for he expressly remarks 

 that his statistical figures date from the incorporation of the Atkha district, which 

 included the Commander Islands, under the colonial management (Stat. Ethn. Nachr. 

 Buss. Besitz. Nordwestk. Amer., p. 24). 



The fact that the Commander Islands were not subject to the central management 

 located at Sitka until 1S2C leads me to believe that the few Commander Islands skins 

 taken are not reported in the figures before that date, but that they were received 

 direct either at Petropaulski or Okhotsk.' 



But even Veniaminof's figures are not beyond suspicion. In his "Zapiski," pub 

 lished in St. Petersburg in 1840, vol. i, chap, xii, he writes as follows (according to 

 Elliott, Monogr., p. 165): "The company on the island of St. Paul killed from 60,000 

 to 80,000 fur-seals per annum, but in the last time (1833!) | Elliott's interjwlationj, with 

 all possible care in getting them, they took only 12,000. On the- island of St. Ceorge, 

 instead of getting 40,000 or 35,000, only 1,300 were killed." Now, if we examine the 

 table of his figures, as presented by Elliott (Monogr., ]). 143), we find no year between 

 1817 and 1837 in which 12,000 seals were taken on St. Paul (13,200 in 1833), nor 1,300 

 on St. George. 



' To show how very unsatisfactory the statistical fisures of the early (Lays as collated by the 

 British Berin<; Sea Coinmission are, I may mention that they estimate the number of fur-seals killed 

 ()n the Pribylof Islands from 1786 to 1833, inclusive, as follows: 



1786 (accordins to Sholikof) 40,000 



1787-1806 (Uewiiiof's estimate) 1,000,000 



1807-1816 (approximated from Tikhmenief at 47,500 auimally) 475,000 



1817-1833 (Veuiaminof) 543,239 



Total. 1786-1833 2,058,230 



This number is 1,120,323 skins short, for Baron von Wranftell, who undoubtedly had pretty reliable 

 information to go by, states that "since the discovery of the islands St. Paul and St. George, from the 

 year 1786 to 1833, 3,178,.562 fur-seals were killed there" (Stat. Ethu. Nachr. Kubs. Am., p. 48). These I 

 should be inclined to distribute as follows: 



Fur-sejils killed on St. Paul Island. 1786-1833: 



1786 (according to Slielikof) 40,000 



1787-1798 1,095,467 



1799-1816 (liancroft's figures from 1799-1821, 1,767,340, minus Yeniaminof'.'i figures 



from 1817-1821, 267,484) 1,409,856 



1817-1833 (Veniaminof; 543,239 



Total (= Von Wr.ingell's figure) 3, 178, ,162 



In the same table and report it is stated (p. 133) how the figures for the years 1861 .and 18G2 are 

 obtained : "1861.— Bancroft's total for years 1812-1861 (both inclusive) is 338.600. The total for years 



1842-1860 (both inclusive) is 308,901. this being dcdiidi-il t'v total for 1842-1861 gives the number 



of seals taken in 1861." In their table, however, the total for 1842-18G0 is not 308,901 but 318,901. 



