SEAL LIFE ON THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 89 



rocks of the shore, or gracefully, and without showing the slightest fear, performing 

 the most acrobatic evolutions in the water round our boat. That day I had my first 

 experience of these singular creatures, and from that day dates the special interest 

 I have ever since taken in the study of the life history of the Otariidw, which is one 

 of the most marvelous in /oology. 



In the spring of 1880, while commissioner for Italy at the grand "Fischerei- 

 Ausstell 11114" held at Berlin, I tirst had occasion to admire, in the United States 

 exhibit, the beautiful and spirited drawings of Henry W. Elliott. I have since then 

 taken a keen interest in the wonderful life history ol the North Pacific fur seal (Cat- 

 lor hi HUH ursinus), as best exemplified on the Pribilof Islands. Later on I have care- 

 fully read and commented on the various accounts which have appeared in print oil 

 the subject; thus, in.). A. Allen's North American Pinnipeds, Washington, 1880 (p. 

 311' et seq.), but more especially the detailed and graphic descriptions which have 

 been published by Henry \V. Elliott in his masterly monograph, The Seal Islands of 

 Alaska, in that grand work by G. Brown Goode and associates. The Fisheries and 

 Fishery Industries of the United States (vol. 1, p. 75 et seq.), Washington, 1884, and. 

 again ID his most interesting volume, An Arctic Province, Alaska and the Seal 

 Islands, London, 1886. 



Alter these precedents you can easily imagine how great an interest I take in that 

 "vexata qua>stio," the fur-seal fishery in the Bering Sea; with what pleasure I 

 received through the United States Government and Mr. Long, the United States 

 consul in this city, your communication, and how glad I am of the opportunity thus 

 afforded me of giving my unbiased opinion in the case and aiding you in your noble 

 effort to preserve from litter destruction one of the most interesting of living crea-< 

 tures, and to save at the same tiiue a most valuable source of human industry and 

 profit. 



I have read with great attention your condensed but very complete statement of 

 the salient points regarding the life history of the North Pacific fur seal (Callorlnnus. 

 ursinus}. I have carefully considered the results of your investigation upon the con- 

 dition of the fur-seal rookeries on the Pribilof Islands, your conclusions regarding 

 the cause of their decrease, and the measures you suggest as necessary for the resto- 

 ration and permanent preservation of the seal herd; and I am happy to state that 

 I entirely agree with you on all points. 



The first and most important point for consideration is evidently the cause of the 

 unquestionable decrease ascertained in the fur-seal rookerii s on the Pribilof Islands 

 dining the few past years. The stringently enforced rules which strictly limit the 

 killing for commercial purposes to nonbreeding males or holluschickies, carefully 

 selecced, which selection can only be made on land, entirely preclude to ray mind 

 the suggestion that the lamented* decrease may be attributed in any degree to the 

 killing of too larie a number of nonbreeding males. Such a decrease might have 

 been in some slight measure attributed to the former custom of killing each year a 

 O'l-tain number of male pups to furnish food for the natives, but that practice has 

 been wisely prohibited. Therefore, I feel positive that the notable decrease in the 

 number of fur seals resorting to the rookeries on the Kurile Islands, on the Rohben 

 K'ef (Saghalien), and more especially on the Commander Islands, as being in the 

 Bering Sea, 



Having conclusively shown that the lamented decrease in the herd of fur seals 

 resorting to the Pribilof Islands can in no way be accounted tor by the selective 

 killing of noubreeding males for commercial purposes, which takes place on those 

 islands under special rules and active surveillance, we must look elsewhere for its 

 cause, and I can see it nowhere but in the indiscriminate slaughter, principally prac- 

 ticed on breeding or pregnant females, as most clearly shown in your condensed 

 report, by pelagic sealers. 



In any ca-e, all who are competent in the matter will admit that no method of 

 capture could be more uselessly destructive in the case of pinuipedia than that called 

 " pelagic sealing; " not only any kind of selection of the victims is impossible, but it 

 is admitting much to assert that out of three destroyed one is secured and utilized, 

 and this for obvious and well-known reasons. In the case of the North Pacific iur 

 seal, this mode of capture and destruction falls nearly exclusively on those the nurs- 

 ing or pregnant females which ought on no account to be killed. It is greatly to be 

 deplored that any civilized nation possessing fishery laws and regulations should 

 allow such indiscriminate waste and destruction. The statistical data you give are 

 painfully eloquent, and when we come to the conclusion that the 62, 500 skins secured 

 by pelagic sealing in 1891 represent at a minimum one-sixth of the fur seals destroyed, 

 viz, 375,000 that is, calculating one in three secured and each of the three suckling 

 a pup or big with young we most undoubtedly need not look elsewhere to account 

 for the rapid decrease in the rookeries on the Pribilof Islands; and I quite agree 

 with yu in maintaining that, unless the malpractice of pelagic sealing be prevented 

 or greatly checked, both in the North Pacific and in the Bering Sea, the economic 

 extermination of Callorhinus ursinus is merely the matter of a few years. 



