22 THE FUR SEAL 



persecution and suffering from the lower animals), it is 

 not given to all lovers of nature to accept their teach- 

 ing in its entirety. It gives me the greater pleasure, 

 therefore, as one who has occasionally been castigated 

 in the journal of the League because of my partiality 

 for what these censores morum denounce as 'blood 

 sports' salmon-fishing, fox-hunting and the like it 

 gives me pleasure, I say, to find myself in complete 

 accord with Mr. Joseph Collinson, author of a brochure 

 published in 1909 entitled The Fate of the Fur Seal 



The 'fate' foreshadowed is that which has already 

 been allowed to overtake several beautiful or interesting 

 species of vertebrates, namely, immoderate pursuit 

 without regard to sex, age or condition, resulting in 

 ultimate extinction. When such pursuit is known to 

 be conducted with heartless cruelty, causing intense 

 and needless suffering to thousands of highly organised 

 creatures, it would be a reproach to humanity if no 

 attempt were made to check it by effective regulation. 



Mr. Collinson, who writes with commendable modera- 

 tion, supports his appeal with the testimony of so many 

 eye-witnesses of the seal-fishing as to leave no room for 

 doubt about the horrible circumstances of the massacre 

 which goes on year after year under the flags of Great 

 Britain and the United States. 



It should be remembered that the northern fur seal 

 (Callorhinus ursinus) is quite distinct from the seals 

 of the Atlantic, and inhabits only the North Pacific 

 and Behring Sea as far as the region of Arctic ice. 

 These seals repair in spring in vast numbers to the 

 Pribyloff Islands off the coast of Alaska, where they 



