PESTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 127 



studies in marine life. Being of an inquiring turn 

 of mind, he carefully dissected and examined the 

 stomachs of twenty dead sea-lions that had washed 

 ashore, and of five others that he killed for the 

 purpose of mounting their skins. Now mark the 

 result : 



Every stomach examined contained the remains 

 of squids and devil-fish (Octopus), one or both; 

 both of which are among the fisherman's enemies! 

 Not one of the twenty-five stomachs examined con- 

 tained any portion of a scaled fish! 



In 1901, two investigators from the United 

 States Fish Commission conducted an extensive 

 investigation of this subject, and reported upon it 

 very fully in 1902. At six points on the California 

 coast they killed twenty-four specimens of the 

 California sea-lion and eighteen of Stellar's sea- 

 lion. Their detailed report revealed the fact that 

 the California sea-lion lives chiefly on squid, and 

 the diet of the Stellar embraces both squid and 

 scaled fishes, but as they found it the food of the 

 latter consisted of an assortment of species of little 

 value, and contained not one salmon or shad. 



But for the interference of those meddlesome 

 eastern naturalists, both the species of sea-lions 

 inhabiting the coast of California would have been 

 destroyed, down to a very low point in numbers, 

 in punishment for crimes of which they were almost 

 wholly innocent ! The obvious moral of this episode 

 is never condemn a wild-animal species on insuffi- 



