4^8 LETTERS OF NATURALISTS. 



himself received from his parents. It is evidently the same with the 

 question which occupies us, and it is fin^ our .generation an imi)erious 

 duty to prevent the desti'in^tion of the fnr-seal, to regulate strictly its 

 capture — in a word, to perpetuate this source of wealth and to bequeath 

 it to our descendants. 



To these considerations of an economic character I will add another 

 of a nature purely sentimental. It is not without profound sadness 

 that the naturalist sees a large number of animal species disappear, tbe 

 destruction of which this century will have seen accomplished. When 

 our seas are no longer inhabited by the Cetacea and the great Pinnipeds, 

 when the air is no longer furrowed in all directions by little insectiver- 

 ous birds, who knows if the equilibrium of nature will not be broken, 

 an equilibrium to which the creatures on the way to extinction have 

 greatly contributed'? 



With his harpoons, his firearms, and his machines of every kind, man, 

 with whom the instinct of destruction attains its highest point, is the 

 most cruel enemy of nature and of mankind itself. 



Happily, while yet in time, the savants sound the alarm. In this 

 century, Avhen we believe in science, we must lioj)e that their voice will 

 not be lost in the desert. 



Above all I have the conviction that the very wise measures which 

 you propose with the view of preserving the CaUorhinus nrsinus from 

 an impending destruction will be submitted to an- international com- 

 mission which will ratify them and give them the force of law. 



Will you accept, sir and honored colleague, the expression of my most 

 distinguished sentiments. 



Dr. Raphael Blanchard, 

 Professor and Fellow of the Medical Faculty of Paris, 

 and General Secretary of the Zoological Society of France. 



Reply of Prof. Doctor Wilhelm Lilljeborg, of Upsa/a, Sweden, and Prof Baron Adolf E. 

 Nordenskjold, of the Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden. 



Stockholm, 14th May, iS92. 

 Dr. C. Hart Merrian, 



Washington, D. C. : 



Dear Sir: In answer to your letter of 2d April, asking our opinion 

 as to the causes of the decrease of the sto<'k of Northern Fur Seals 

 [Gallorhinus Urshius) on tlie rookeries of the islands in the North Pa- 

 cific or Bering Sea, and concerning the means proposed by you to arrest 

 this decrease, we allow us to state the foHowing— 



Your description of the life of the Northern Fur Seal corresponds 

 generally with similar descriptions l)y former authors, from tlie cele- 

 brated Dr. Steller, who (1741-4:2) visited the Commander Islands with 

 Vitus Bering, to our days, and also with our own personal ex})erien('es 

 of the animal life in the arctic seas, and with the informations one of 

 us gathered from the inhabitants during a short stay in the Bering Sea. 



We do not, therefore, hesitate to declare that the facts ab(mt the life 

 and habits of the Fur Seal, stated by you in your said letter under 

 1-20, should serve as a base for the regulations necessary to preserve 

 this grcigarious animal from its threatened extinction in a compara- 

 tively short time. 



These regulations may be divided into two cathegories, viz. — Imo. — 

 Regulations for the killing, etc., of the Fur Seals on the rookeries in 



