CHAPTER IX. 



THE THEORY OF OVERDRIVING. 



DRIVING AND ITS SUPPOSED RESULTS. 



From tbe foregoing it must be clear that land killing has never produced a scarcity 

 of male life for breeding purposes, and has not therefore been a factor in the decline 

 of the herd. This would naturally end the matter, were it not for the prominence 

 which certain absurd theories have received. These we must consider in some detail. 



It is to Mr. Henry W. Elliott, who was sent in 1890 to investigate the condition 

 of the fur-seal herd, that we are indebted for the theory that overdriving is a cause of 

 injury to the herd. In his report Mr. Elliott has elaborated this theory at great 

 length. It is plainly not the outgrowth of his investigations, but their guiding 

 hypothesis from the beginning to the end. 



Mr. Elliott, instead of seeking in the breeding herd the cause of its decline, 

 impressed by the great diminution of the bachelor herds, confined his attention solely 

 to them. The condition of this class of animals is only an incident to the life of 

 the herd. The causes affecting it necessarily originate in the breeding herd. 



He found, what is undoubtedly true and has been from the first, that the young 

 males began a course of driving from the hauling grounds to the killing grounds at 

 the age of 1 year. They were rejected because too small. Tbe following year they 

 appeared in the drives again as 2-year-olds, and were again rejected for the same 

 reason. In the third year they were, so far as driven, killed. The fourth and 

 subsequent years found those which escaped as 3-year-olds unsuitable for killing on 

 account of the incipient wig, and they were accordingly again rejected, as certainly 

 as they appeared in the drives. 



This course of driving resulted, according to Mr. Elliott, in the death of practically 

 all the animals released, or else the impairment of virility in those which survived. 

 The only recruits which the breeding males received therefore was an insignificant 

 number of debilitated males, whose sexual powers were lost. In this way the herd 

 had been destroyed. This, in brief, is the theory of overdriving. 



THE PROCESS OF DRIVING. 



Let us examine for a moment this process of driving and the animal which has 

 to undergo it. As we know, very few of the yearlings get into the drives till after 

 the middle of July, when the sealing season is nearly over; therefore, not many of 

 the seals are driven at this age. In the second and subsequent years they come 

 earlier and are driven more frequently. The seals on each hauling ground are 

 gathered up about six times in a season; but as in each drive new killable seals 

 are found which certainly have not been driven before during the season in question, 

 we may assume that the rejected seals themselves are not all driven each time. In 

 fact, we must assume that in the years immediately subsequent to 1890 the seals of 

 the age of 3 years that escaped to grow up were not driven at all ; otherwise they 

 could not have survived. 



126 



