hU. PHILIP LUTLEY SCLATEE. 413 



I take to be out of the qiiostioii). It must be i)ermittod while the seals 

 are in the s^a; and if it is permitted there is no limit to the destruc- 

 tion which may be effected. 



Numerous as the seals may l)e, they are a trifle compared with her- 

 ring schools and cod walls, and human agency is relatively a far more 

 important factor in destruction in their case than in that of herrings 

 and cod. Up to this tinie fishing has nuide no sensible impression on 

 the great herring and cod fisheries; but it has been easy to extirpate 

 seal fisheries. 



13. Finally, 1 v entnre to remark that there are only two alternative 

 courses worth pursuing. 



One is to let the fur-seals be extirpated. Mankind will not suffer 

 much if the ladies are obliged to do without sealskin jackets; and the 

 fraction of the English, Canadian, and American population which 

 lives on the sealskin industry will be no worse off than the vastly 

 greater multitude who have had to snffer for the vagaries of fashion 

 times out of number. Certainly, if the seals are to be a source of con- 

 stant bickering between two nations the sooner they are abolished the 

 better. 



The other course is to tread doAvn all merely personal and trade inter- 

 est in pursuit of an arrangement that will work and be fair all round; 

 and to sink all the stupidities of national vanity and xiolitical self-seek- 

 ing along with them. 



There is a great deal too much of all these undeniable elements ap- 

 parent in the documents which I have been studying. 



T. H. Huxley. 



April 25, 1892. 



AFFIDAVIT BY DR. PHILIP LUTLEY SCLATER. 



Philip Lutley vSclater, ph. d., secretary of the Zoological Society of 

 London, being duly sworn, doth depose and say that in his opinion as 

 a naturalist — 



1. Unless proper measures are taken to restrict the indiscriminate 

 capture of the fur-seal in the North Pacific he is of opinion that the 

 extermination of this sj)ecies will take place in a few years, as it has 

 already done in the case of other species of the same group in other 

 parts of tlie world. 



2. It seems to ,him that the proper way of proceeding would be to 

 stop the killing of females and young of the fur-seal altogether or as 

 far as possible, and to restrict the killing of the males to a certain num- 

 ber in each year. 



3. The only way he can imagine by which these rules could be carried 

 out is by killing the seals only in the islands at the breeding time (at 

 which time it appears that the young males keep apart from the females 

 and old males), and by preventing altogether, as far as possible, the 

 destruction of the fur-seals at all other times and in other places. 



Philip Lutley Sclater, Ph. D., F. E. S. 



Sworn at the offices of the Zoological Society of London, No. 3 Han- 

 over Square, London, England, this 10th day of May, A. D. 1892, before 

 me. 

 [l. s.] Francis W. Frigout, 



Vice and Deputy and Acting Consul- General of the 



United States of America at London, England. 



