REPORT OF AMERICAN COMMISSIONERS. 323 



Lower California, belong to widely different Homes of the 



fur-seal. 



species and are placed in different genera from 

 the Northern fur-seal. 



2. In winterthe fur-seals micrrates into the North Southward mi- 



^ gratiou. 



Pacific Ocean. The herds from the Commander 

 Islands, Robben Heef, and the Kurile Islands 

 move south along the Japan coast, while the herd 

 belonging to the Pribilof Islands leaves Bering 

 Sea by the eastern passes of the Aleutian chain. 



3. The fur-seals of the Pribilof Islands do not ^ Pi'^j i i « f and 



Comuiander herds 



mix with those of the Commander and Kurile '^^ ^*^^ ^"'S^*^- 

 islands at any time of the year. In summer the 

 two herds remain entirely distinct, separated by 

 a water interval of several hundred miles; and in 

 their winter migrations those from the Pribilof 

 Islands follow the American coast in a southeast- 

 erly direction, while those from the Commander 

 and Kurile islands follow the Siberian and Japan 

 coasts in a southwesterly direction, the two herds 

 being separated in winter by a water interval of 

 several thousand miles. This regularity in the 

 movements of the different herds is in obedience 

 to the well known law that migratory animals 

 folloiv definite routes in migration and return year 

 after year to the same places to hreed. Were it not 

 for this law there would be no such thing as 

 stability of species, for interbreeding and exist- 



