220 PKOTECTION AND PRESERVATION. 



Destinctiou. produced an annual supply of skins for all times ".^ 

 James Kiernan, who about 1843 visited on a 

 sealing voyage tlie east coast of Patagonia and 

 the Falkland Islands, says : " These rookeries 

 have since been destroyed through the constant 

 hunting of seals."^ Caleb Lindahl, also experi- 

 enced in sealing in southern latitudes, in speaking 

 of the destruction of seals at the South Shetland 

 Islands, says: ''If the seals on the South Shet- 

 land Islands had l:)een protected I think they 

 would have been there by the million, because 

 in one year they took three hundred thousand 

 seals from the Shetland Islands."^ The same 

 hunter also, in telling of a sealing expedition he 

 made in 1891 to the south seas, says : " The seals 

 are nearly all killed off down there, so that we 

 got only about twenty skins. It is no use for 

 vessels to go there sealing any more."^ 



The Russian The i)elao-ic sealers of the North Pacific have 

 not confined their oj)erations to the eastern side 

 of the Pacific Ocean, but have invaded the 

 Russian waters, and the slaughter has already 

 been carried on to such an extent in that locality 

 that the Commander herd has begun to decrease 

 in tlie same manner as the Alaskan lierd.^ 



1 Vol. II, p. 595. 



2 Vol. II, p. 450. 



3 Caleb Lindahl, Vol. IT, p. 456. 



" Giistav'3 Niobanni, Vol. II, p. 203. 



