Fur-bearing Animals of the Pacific Slope, 189 



Almost the entire catch from the Prybiloff Rookeries goes to 

 England for dressing, the Government of the United States reaping 

 a further profit by collecting a high duty on the dressed skins 

 re-entering the States, more than half of the whole catch returning, 

 it is said, to that country. What a profitable investment the 

 purchase of Alaska has proved to be for the United States is shown 

 by the fact that in the twenty-one years (1870-90) the rent and 

 taxes of the Prybiloffs amounted to 1,250,000, and the duties on 

 returning dressed skins, amounting to over one million sterling, 

 brought the total up to 2,250,000. Verily a famous purchase ! 



The fur and the hair seal are often mistaken for each other by 

 persons unaware of the slight generic resemblance between the 

 two, and the valuelessness of the latter's skin as a pelt. It arises 

 probably from the fact that while the eastern ports of Canada 

 annually send large fleets of "sealers" to catch hair seal in the 

 Atlantic for the sake of their oil, the western ports of the same 

 country, i.e., British Columbian ports (chiefly Victoria), fit out 

 sealers who hunt the fur seal in the North Pacific by means of the 

 open sea or pelagic fishing. 



While this is not the place for an academic discussion of the 

 much vexed question whether pelagic sealing is really so enormously 

 wasteful of seal life as the Americans declare it is, the following 

 brief, description of the industry may be of service to those who 

 did not closely follow the evidence adduced by the Paris 

 tribunal. To understand what is meant by pelagic fishing it must 

 be remembered that after the conclusion of the breeding season the 

 seal return once more to their true element, and, passing through 

 'the gaps between the Aleutian Archipelago, follow up, it is believed, 

 in the warmer waters of the North Pacific, the vast shoals of their 

 food fishes (the oolakan or candle fish and the herring) which do 

 not frequent the Behring Sea. The area they frequent during the 

 seven or eight months of their marine existence is an immense one, 

 hardly less than ten million square miles, and, as they never land, 

 and are at this time of the year shy and wary, the chase is by no 

 means a sure one. Pelagic fishing is chiefly pursued in the spring, 



