SEAL LIFE ON THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 115 



for the Government and the lessees shows that the fur seals spend at least four 

 months of the year on the I'rihilof Islands. 



Having found, with the American commissioners, a marked diminution in thenum- 

 ber of seals on and habitually resorting to the Pribilol Islands, the British commis- 

 sioners proceed to show that the seals are more numerous than ever. They have, 

 no doubt, demonstrated this to their entire satisfaction on pages 72 and 73 of their 

 report. Captain Warren they quote as saying that he noticed no diminution in the 

 number of seals during the twenty years that he had been in that business, and, if 

 any change at all, an increase (section 403). To the same effect Captain Leary, who 

 says that in Bering Sea they were more numerous tban he had ever seen them (sec- 

 tion 103), while Mr. Milne, collector of customs at Victoria, reports, what others 

 have said to him. that owners and masters do not entertain the slightest idea that 

 the seals are scarce (section 403). What a tribute this must be to the managemeutof 

 the Pribiiof Islands if, notwithstanding the conceded destruction of gravid and nurs- 

 ing females, these statements should be true. ('apt. W. Cox took 1,000 seals in four 

 days 100 miles to the westward of the Pribilof Islands (section 40.1). He, found the 

 seals much more plentiful in Bering Sea than he had ever seen them before. It would 

 have added much to the interest of Captain Cox's statement if he had told us how 

 many of these seals ga\ e evidence of having left their pups at home. 



The British commissioners multiply the evidence to show that the general experi- 

 ence as stated to them has been that seals were equally or more abundant at sea at 

 the time of rheir extermination than they had been in former years. It is difficult 

 to treat this with the respect that a report emanating from gentlemen of character 

 and high official position should meet. Either the statement in the joint report is 

 true and the assumption of an increase is untrue, or vice versa. In view of the evi- 

 dence that these seals have no other home than the 1'ribilof Islands, it is plain, 

 beyond the necessity of demonstration, that all the seals killed by Captain Cox and 

 others in the Bering Sea were inhabitants of those islands, and the testimony only 

 goes to show that the mothers do go out to sea a hundred miles or more, as is sworn 

 to by the witnesses for the United States, and that it is while they are on the feeding 

 grounds, or searching abroad for food, that they are captured by the Canadian poach- 

 ers. If this is not so, then let the commissioners or those advocating their views 

 tell us where these seals slaughtered by Captain Cox and others found their "sum- 

 mer habitat." 



Any pretense that the seals are decreasing at home i. e., where they live through 

 the summer, and breed, and nurse, and shed their hair and at the same time are 

 increasing in the sea is simply an absurdity. It would have added much to the value 

 of the testimony of all these masters if they had not sedulously avoided stating the 

 sex of the animals that they killed. 



There is one, and one explanation only, of this, and that explanation makes the 

 stories above quoted plausible. The pelagic sealers were engaged in hunting nurs- 

 ing mothers on the feeding grounds, where those animals are found in large numbers. 

 The decrease proved, and indeed admitted to exist (see joint report), had not yet 

 been so great as to be manifest to those sealers who were so fortunate as to fall in 

 with a number of females either intent upon finding the food necessary to produce a 

 flow of milk or sleeping on the surface of the water after feeding. 



And here we may note another illustration of the thesis and its advocacy. Having 

 satisfied themselves that pelagic sealing rather operated to increase the supply of 

 seals they remembered that the killing of young males was objectionable and likely 

 to result in extermination, and thereupon discovered the fact that " a meeting of 

 natives was held " at which the aborigines unanimously expressed the opinion that 

 the seals had diminished and would continue to diminish from year to year (an 

 opinion, too plain, we think, for argument), but they at once assign the reason, which 

 is not the killing of many females, but the extraordinary fact that " all the male seals 

 had been slaughtered without allowing any to come to maturity upon the breeding 

 grounds." (Section 438.) 



Having thus proved that the seals were in a flourishing condition of increase, and 

 that they were decreasing in an alarming degree, the conclusion is reached that the 

 decrease is on the land and the increase in the water: 



The general effect of these changes in the habits of the seals is to minimize the 

 Sliunber to be seen at any one time on the breeding islands, while the average num- 

 ber to be found at sea, at least proportionately, though perhaps in face of a general 

 decrease in the number of seals, not absolutely increased." (Section 445 of British 

 Commissioners' Keport.) 



Would it be irrelevant to inquire what was the "summer habitat" of the numer- 

 ous seals slaughtered by Captain Warren, Captain Leary, and Captain Cox? Were 

 they not all of the Pribilof family? Did not the commissioners, who quoted Captain 

 Cox to the effect that he had, no doubt in true sportsmanlike fashion, with a shot- 

 gun, killed 250 seals a day for four days, know that the enormous majority of these 

 were nursing mothers whose pups were starving at home? (Argument of the United 

 States, p. 288.) 



