ENEMIES. 381 



'^ What can be done to promote their increase ? We cannot 

 cause a greater number of females to be born everj' year ; we 

 do not touch or disturb these females as they grow up and live, 

 and we save more than enough males to serve them. Xothing^ 

 more can be done, for it is impossible to protect them from 

 deadly enemies in their wanderings for food." 



" In view, therefore, of all these facts," continues Mr. Elliott, 

 " I have no hesitation in saying quite confidently that, under 

 the present rules and regulations governing the sealing inter- 

 ests on these islands, the increase or diminution of the life will 

 amount to nothing; that the seals will continue for all time in 

 about the same number and condition."* 



Enemies of the Fur Seals. Man, of course, stands first in 

 importance as an enemy of the Fur Seals, but under the restric- 

 tions respecting the killing these animals now enforced at the 

 Prybilov Islands, does not aj)pear to have a very marked 

 influence in effecting their decrease. That they suffer greatly 

 from other animals is evident from the fact that only about 

 one-half of the Seals annually born at the Seal Islands ever 

 return there again. What these enemies are is not as yet well 

 known, since it is only within a. few years that the matter has 

 been so closely studied as to render it apj)arent that there is 

 this very large decrease of young Seals during their absence 

 from the islands. It has been known, however, for many years 

 that Killer Whales (different species of Orca) prey habitually 

 upon the young, from these having been found in their stomachs. 

 Michael Carroll, Esq., in his " Seal and Herring Fisheries of 

 Newfoundland " and in the reports on the Canadian Fisheries, 

 alludes to the great destruction of young Seals on the Atlantic 

 coast by this animal and by sharks and sword-fishes, and also 

 by their being crushed in the ice. The Orca and the sharks 

 are alluded to by Mr. Elliott as preying extensively upon the 

 young Seals, and it may be that many others are destroyed by 



enemies not at present well known. 



* 



Since the foregoing was prepared for publication, I have re- 

 ceived from Captain Bryant the subjoined account, based on 

 long personal experience at Saint Paul's Island. Although in 

 some points anticipated by Mr. Elliott's x)ublished Eeport, and 

 covering to a great extent the same phases of the subject, it 

 contains so much additional matter that at the expense of some 



* Condition of Affairs in Alaska, pp. 88, 89. 



