REPORT OP AMERICAN COMMISSIONERS. 355 



Thus the cliaoTams oiye, it is beHevecl, a fair Expianatiou of 



^ diagrams. 



representation of the condition of a herd of about 

 80,000 seals, 10,000 males and the same number 

 of females being born each year, showing the 

 breeding and the nonbreeding of both males and 

 females ; the breeding males, it must be remem- 

 bered, including those not only found at the 

 head of harems, but all of those that in virtue of 

 their age and condition are capable of filling a 

 place on the breeding rookeries. The killable 

 males include only those not under two or over 

 four years of age, which furnish skms of the 

 finest quality and greatest value. 



It is important to remark here that everyone 

 of the breeding females is necessary to insure 

 the annual birth of 20,000 pups. If this were 

 not the case and the herd were undisturbed it 

 would increase in numbers, which is contrary to 

 the hypothesis that it has already reached its 

 normal condition of stability. 



Diagram C shows the male portion of the same 

 herd when judiciously worked by man. No 

 females under the breeding age can be killed, for 

 that would very shortly reduce the number of 

 breeding females, and none of these can be spared 

 without reducing the number of births. The 

 only females available for killing without injury 

 to the herd are the barren females. Were their 



