HISTORY AND PROSPECTS OF FUR SEAL BUSINESS. 379 



THE Prybilov Islands. From tlie speedy extermination of 

 the Fur Seals of the Southern hemisphere at many points where 

 they existed a century ago in apparently inexhaustible numbers,* 

 the preservation of the Northern Fur Seals at the two small 

 islands that now, so far as known, form their princii)al breeding- 

 stations, becomes a matter of much zoological interest as well as 

 of practical imi)ortance. The islands of Saint George and Saint 

 Paul were discovered, respectively, in 1786 and 1787, and im- 

 mediately after, it is stated, as many as six comi^anies established 

 themselves at these islands, all vieing with each other in the de- 

 struction of the Seals in consequence of the great commercial 

 value of the skins. No record appears to have been kept of the 

 number annually killed between 1787 and 1805, at which time 

 the number of Seals frequenting the islands had greatly de- 

 creased. Then follows for two years axessation of the slaugh- 

 ter, which was resumed in 1808. Up to 1822 the destruction 

 of Seal life was indiscriminate and wholly without restriction 

 from government or other sources. In tliis year it was ordered 

 that young Seals should be spared each year for the purpose of 

 keeping up the stock. This order was so honestly enforced that 

 in four years the number of Seals on Saint Paul's Island in- 

 creased tenfold. The number annually taken these years was 

 only 8,000 to 10,000, instead of 40,000 to 50,000, the number for- 

 merly killed yearly. Subsequently the killing was allowed to 

 greatly increase, which prevented any augmentation in the 

 number of Seals. In 1834 the number allowed to be killed on 

 Saint Paul's Island was reduced from 12,000 to 6,000. After 

 this date the conditions of increase were more carefully studied 

 and more carefully regarded, so that there was a gradual numer- 

 ical increase from 1835 to 1857, when the rookeries are said to 

 have become very nearly as large as now, the natives believing, 

 however, that there has been, since the last-named date, a very 

 gradual but steady increase. The great diminution seems to 

 have set in about 1817, and to have continued till 1834, when, 

 as Mr. Elliott expresses it, "hardly a tithe of the former num- 

 bers appeared on the ground." From 1835 to 1857 there was 

 a steady increase, when the maximum then reached appears to 

 have been maintained. 



In regard to the number now x)resent on these islands, Mr. 

 Elliott estimated, from a careful survey of the breeding-grounds, 



* See anted,, p. 334, .footnote, e. g., respecting their former abundance and 

 early almost total extirpation at the Island of Juan Fernandez. 



