230 Carnivora Pinnipedia. 



except in case of shipwreck or distress; and the company- 

 was obligated to pay the government a yearly rental tax 

 of $2.00 per skin, for the privilege of killing each year 

 20,000 bachelor Seals, between the ages of one and five 

 years. In addition to the payments to the government 

 the company was obliged to furnish the natives of the 

 islands mentioned, such quantities of salt, and such a 

 number of barrels, as they might need for the preserva- 

 tion of the meat kept for food , and eighty tons of coal an- 

 nually; to erect, and keep in repair, comfortable dwell- 

 ings, and a suitable house of worship ; to establish, and 

 maintain for eight months each year, proper schools for 

 the education of the j^oung; to provide competent physic- 

 ians and medicines for the sick ; and to supply the 

 widows and orphans, and the aged and infirm inhabitants 

 of the islands, with the necessities of life. The govern- 

 ment reserved the right to change the terms of the lease 

 at any time by giving due notice of its intentions, and re- 

 quired the company to deposit, with the United States 

 Treasury at Washington, the sum of $50,000 as a guaran- 

 tee fund. 



The only change made in the conditions of this lease 

 was one limiting the catch to 15,000 skins yearly, and 

 obliging the company to brand and sequester one thousand 

 each of one and three-year-old male Seals before the killing 

 commenced. In spite of all restrictions it is claimed there 

 had been up to 1906 a falling off of forty-two per cent, in 

 the number of breeding males or bulls, and the Congress- 

 ional Committee having the matter in charge recommended 

 the entire suspension of killing on the islands for a num- 

 ber of years, as the only way to prevent the complete ex- 

 termination of the species. Those who made a careful 

 stud}^ of the subject were however convinced that, in- 

 asmuch as the proportion of males and females is about 

 the same at birth, the polygamous nature of these animals 

 -win safely alloAv the killing of six or. even nine out of 

 every ten males. They therefore claimed that the 

 preservation of the herd did not depend upon further 

 protection for the males on the islands, but upon the ces- 

 sation of pelagic sealing, which results in the destruction 

 of at least three lives for every skin taken — the mother, 

 the unborn offspring and the nursing pup. That this was 



