DR. HENRY H. GTGLlOLI. 425 



In any ca'^e, all wlio are competent in the matter will admit that no 

 Diethoil of (; iptnre could be more uselessly destructive in the case of 

 riniiipedia than that called '' pelagic sealing;" not only any kind of 

 selection of the victhns is impossible, but it is admitting much to assert 

 that out of three destroyed one is secured and utilized, and this for ob- 

 vious and well known reasons. In the case of the North Pacific Fur 

 Seal, this mode of captura and destruction is doubly to be condemned, 

 because the destrui'tion falls nearly exclusively on those, the nursing 

 or pregnant females, wliich ought on no account to be killed. It is 

 greatly to be deplored that any civilized nation possessing fishery laws 

 and regulations should allow such indiscriminate waste and destruc- 

 tion. The statistical data you give are painfully eloquent, and when 

 we come to the conclusion that the 02,500 skins secured by pelagic seal- 

 ing in 1891 represent at a minimum one-sixth of the Fur Seals destroyed, 

 viz, 375,000 — that is, calculating one in three secured and each of the 

 three suckling a pup or big witli young — we most undoubtedly need not 

 look elvsewhere to account for the rapid decrease in the rookeries on the 

 Pribilof Islands; and I quite agree vv'ith you in retaining that unless 

 the mal])ractice of pelagic sealing be ]>revented or greatly checked, 

 both in the North Pacific and in the Bering Sea, the economic extermi- 

 nation of G(illorlii)ius ursinns is merely the matter of a few years. 



International legislation ought to intervene, and without delay, in this 

 case, and suggest the means of possibly preventing or, at least, consid- 

 erably limiting the pelagic capture and killing of the Northern fur seal — 

 a destructive and ultimately fatal industry, wliich forcibly recalls the 

 well-known fable of the peasant who killed the hen which laid the 

 golden eggs. The industry derived from the rational killing of Fur 

 Seals, as practiced on the Pribilof Islands, has an economic value 

 which extends far bej^ond the limits, though vast, of the United States; 

 audit must be rememl)ered that the commercial extermination of the 

 Fur Seal must also i)ut an end to those industries which are connected 

 with the prejiaration of the much-valued Sealskin fur. 



It is both as a Naturalist and as an old Commissioner of Fisheries 

 that I beg to say once more that 1 most entiridy and most emphatically 

 agree with you in the conclusions and recommendations you come to in 

 your report on the x)resent condition of the Fur Seal industry in the Ber- 

 ing Sea, with special reference to the causes of decrease and the meas- 

 ures necessary for the restoration and permanent preservation of that 

 industry, which conclusions and recommendations are fully supported 

 and justified by the facts in the case. 



With much regard, believe me, dear sir, very truly yours, 



Henry H. Gtglioli, 



Dr. C. Hart Merriam, etc., 



Waslnngton, D. G. 



Reply of Or, Rafhael Blanchard, Professor Agrege a la Faculte de m§decine de Paris, et 

 Secretaire General de la Societe Zoologique de France. 



Paris, le 3 men 1892. 

 A Monsieur le Dr. C. Hart Merriam, 

 Bureau of Animal Industry, 



Department of Agriculture, a WasJiington, D. G.: 

 Monsieur et honore CollEgue: J'ai In avec le plus vif interet 

 le savant memoire que vous m'avez fait I'honneur de m'adresser, con- 

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