DR. ALPHONSE MILNE EDWARDS. 419 



Veuillez agreei", Monsieui", I'expressionclemes sentiments trfes distin- 



Le directeur du Mnseuni d'histoire natnrelle, 



A. Milne Edwards. 

 M. le docteur Merriam. 



[Translation.] 



Paris, April 20, 1892. 



Sir: I hav^e read with great interest the letter you addressed me 

 with reference to the fur seals of Bering Sea, and I think it would be 

 of real advantage to have concerted international measures so as to 

 insure an effective protection to tliose valuable animals. 



To-day the means of transportation at the disposal of the fishermen 

 are so great, the processes of destruction which they employ are so im- 

 proved, tliat tlie animal species, the object of their desire, can not escape 

 them. AVe know that our migratory birds are, during their travels, ex- 

 posed to a real war of extermination, and an ornithological international 

 commission has already examined, not unprolitably, all the questions 

 relating to their preservation. 



Would it not be possible to put fur seals under the protection of the 

 navy of civilized nations'? 



What has happened in the Southern Ocean may serve as a warning 

 to us. 



Less than a century ago these amphibia existed there in countless 

 herds. In 180S, when Fanning visited the islands of South Georgia, 

 one ship left those shores, carrying away 14,000 sealskins belonging to 

 the species Aretocephalm Australis. He himself obtained 57,000 of 

 them, and he estimated at 112,000 the number of these animals killed 

 during the few weeks the sailors spent there that year. 



In 1822 Weddell visits these islands and he estimates at 1,200,000 

 ■the number of skins obtained in that locality. The same year 320,000 

 fur seals were killed in the South Shetlands. The inevitable conse- 

 quences of this slaughter were a rapid decrease in the number of these 

 animals. So, in spite of the measures of protection taken during the 

 last few years by the Governor of the Falkland Islands, these seals are 

 still very rare, and the naturalists of the French expedition of the Ro- 

 mariche remained for nearly a year at Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland 

 Islands without being able to cajiture a single specimen. 



It is a source of wealth which is now exhausted. 



It will soon be thus with the Callorhinus ursinus in the North Pacific 

 Ocean, and it is time to insure to these animals a security which may 

 allow them regular reproduction. 



I have followed with much attention the investigations which have 

 been made by the Government of the United States on this subject. 

 Tlie reports of the commissioners sent to t\ie Pribilof Islands have made 

 known to naturalists a very large number of facts of great scientific in- 

 terest, and have demonstrated that a regulated system of killing may be 

 safely api^lied in the case of these herds of seals when there is a super- 

 fiuity of males. What might be called a tax on celibacy was applied in 

 this Avay in the most satisfactory manner, and the indefinite preserva- 

 tion of the species would have been assured, if the emigrants, on their 

 way back to their breeding places, had not been attacked and pursued 

 in every way. 



There is, then, every reason to turn to account the very complete in- 

 formation which we possess on the conditions of fur-seal life in order 



