PROTECTION OF ANIMALS FOR UTILITY 223 



two brethren empowered to catch a robber from Colonsay 

 who, having come over in his boat at night to a small island 

 where the young seals were brought forth and reared, killed 

 and stole many of them. The seals were the property of 

 the settlement in lona and were carefully protected and 

 encouraged to multiply as a reserve for supplying food, 

 clothing and oil to the monks. 



Simple as was this oldest protection of the seal in 

 Scotland in the sixth century, it is still the latest method; for 

 it was instituted in 1912 in the Pribilof Islands, off Alaska. 

 The prohibition of killing in that famous breeding-ground 

 has increased the stock of Fur Seals (Arctocephalus ursmus), 

 according to the enumeration and calculations of the United 

 States Bureau of Fisheries, from 363,872 in 191510417,329 

 in 1916, a gain of over 53,000 in a single year. 



The protection of even a single breeding-ground on a 

 small island on the west of Scotland must in that area have 

 had no little effect in keeping up the numbers of seals. 

 Otherwise, under the constant demands of man they must 

 have followed that course of decline which elsewhere has 

 invariably accompanied unrestricted slaughter. This very 

 slaughter, to which I referred in the preceding chapter (p. 172), 

 rendered necessary the protection of the Grey Seal (Hali- 

 ckcems grypus] in British waters, and this was granted in 

 19 14 by an Act of Parliament which instituted an annual close 

 season from the ist of October till the i5th of December. 



PROTECTION OF ANIMALS AS SCAVENGERS 



The encouragement and protection of such animals as 

 feed upon carrion and garbage is a well established custom 

 in many and especially tropical lands where sanitation is in 

 its infancy, and where festering heat hastens decay and 

 noisomeness. In such countries, Jackals by night and Pariah 

 Dogs by day are tolerated with a benevolent neutrality on 

 account of their services to cleanliness, while the sacredness 

 of the Vultures of India and the sufferance accorded to their 

 relatives in the warmer regions of Europe, Asia and Africa 

 can be traced to their efficiency as cleansers of the earth. 



In Scotland in early days and down to comparatively 

 recent times the sanitary condition of towns and villages 



