OTARIES AT THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS. 769 



Lisburne, Arctic ocean, written to the New Bedford Standard, 

 and dated August 2 [1879], says : 



"'This season up to the present time has been a successful 

 one. Fifty-one whales have been taken by the fleet, against 

 thirty-two at the same time last year, and the whales have run 

 large, averaging about 100 barrels of oil, and say 80,000 pounds 

 of whalebone in all ; also about 11,000 walrus against 12,000 

 last year 5 the walrus making less oil than usual, as fewer 

 females are killed and a larger proportion of male walrus than 

 in years past. . . . The trading vessels have about 6000 

 pounds of whalebone and a small quantity of ivory compared 

 with former years ; about half the fleet are in this vicinity, the 

 other half are all over to Cape Seege and the western walrus- 

 ing, destroying them by the thousands; about 11,000 have 

 been taken and 30,000 or 40,000 destroyed this year. Another 

 year or perhaps two years will finish them, there will hardly 

 be one left, and I advise all natural history societies and 

 museums to get a specimen while they can. Fully one-third 

 of the population south of St. Lawrence bay perished the past 

 winter for want of food, and half the natives of St. Lawrence 

 Island died; one village of 200 inhabitants all died except- 

 ing one man. Mothers took their starving children to the 

 burying-grounds, stripped the clothing from their little emaci- 

 ated bodies, and then strangled them or let the intense cold 

 end their misery. It is heart-rending to hear them tell how 

 they suffered. Captain Cogan has taken very few walrus ; he 

 says that for every one hundred walrus taken a family is 

 starved, and I concur in his opinion. I should like to see a 

 stop put to this business of killing the walrus, and so would 

 most of those engaged in it. Almost every one says ttiat it is 

 starving the natives, and if one of our whalers should be 

 wrecked on the coast in the fall, the crew must perish.'" 



FAMILY OTARIID^l. 



OTARIES AT THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS. To the footnote to 

 page 211, the following may be added : 



An early reference to the occurrence of the Southern Fur 

 Seal at these islands is given by Pennant (Arct. Zool., i, 1792, 

 p. 199; see also Hist, Quad., third ed., ii, 1793, p. 282) on the 

 authority of Woodes Eogers (Voy., p. 136, 265). On referring 

 to Callander's account of Eogers's voyage, the only one to 

 Misc. Pub. No.* 12 49 



