70 



THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



12. MAISTS^EE OF TAKING THE SEALS. 



Exhibit of all skins shipped from the Peibyloy islands. — As au exhibit of the entire number of fur-seal 

 skins taken for taxes and sale from the PribyloY islands, between 1797 and 1880, inclusive, I present the foHowing 

 table, which, although it may vary from the true aggregate, during the long period of nearly one hundred years 

 covered by it, I am nevertheless satisfied it is the best evidence of the kind which can be obtained. Prior to the 

 year 18G8 it will be noticed that I have given only a series of estimates for the period antedating that year, as far 

 back as 1862. The reason lor this is that I can find nowhere, in writing, an authenticated record of the catch. It 

 was the policy of the old Russian company invariably to take more skins, every year, from these islands down to 

 Sitka than they could profitably dispose of annually in the markets of the world; a large surplus being yearly left 

 over, which were suffered to decay or be destroyed by moths, and subsequently thrown into the sea. I can only 

 judge, therefore, of what they took in that period, from what I know they had on hand in their Salt-house at St. 

 George and St. Paul during 1867, which was 40,Q00 to 48,000 skins ; and this the natives told me was a larger 

 average than they had taken for a great many years prior to that date. Hence, I have proportioned it back to the 

 last record, which I find in Techmainov, whose figures, embraced in the three periods, from 1796 to 1861, have been 

 given as copied by him from the authentic archives of the old Eussian company ; he is careful to say, in this 

 connection, that the exhibit does not show all skins that were taken from the seal-islands, but only those which 

 the Russians took for sale from Sitka. 



And, again, other Eussian authors, rather than this historian of the Eussian American Company, have said 

 that immense numbers of fiu'-seal skins — hundreds of thousands — were frequently accumulated in the warehouses 

 at Sitka only to decay and be destroyed. Their aggregate cannot be estimated within any bound of accuracy, and 

 it is not in the sum total of the following table. What we have taken on the island, since 1868, is presented below, 

 almost correct. In the appendix, where I give a short digest of Professor Fordenskiold's visit to Bering 

 island, will be found another table showing the number of skins taken from those Russian Commander islands. 

 In the following table, relative to the Pribylov group, it will be noticed that there is a gap of ten years, between 1786, 

 the djite of their discovery, and 1805, the time of the earliest Russian record. How many were taken then, there 

 is not the faintest evidence in black and white ; but we do know that from the time of the discovery of the Pribylov 

 islands up to 1799, the taking of fur-seals on both of these islands progressed without count or lists, and without 

 any responsible head or director; because there were then, upon those islands, seven or eight different companies, 

 represented by as many agents or leaders, and all of them vied one with the other in taking as many fui--seals as 

 they could:* 



Fur-seal skins taken from tJie Prybllov islands for shipment and sale. 



*Includinj: about 5,000 annually from the Commander islands. 



The manner in which the seals are taken. — By reference to the habit, of the fur-seal, which I have 

 discussed at length, it is now plain and beyond doubt, that two-thirds of all the males which are born, and they 

 are equal in numbers to the females born, are never permitted by the remaining third, strongest by natuial 

 selection, to land upon the same i)reediug-grouud with the females, which always herd thereupon en masse. Hence, 

 this great band of "bachelor" seals, or "hoUuschickie", so fitly temied, when it visits the island is obliged to live 

 apart entirely — sometimes, and some places, miles away fiom the rookeries; and, in this admirably perfect method 

 of nature are those seals which can be properly killed without injury to the rookeries, selected and held aside by 

 their own volition, so that the natives can visit and take them without disturbing, in the least degree, the entire 

 quiet of the breeding-grounds, where the stock is perpetuated. 



The manner in which the natives cai)ture and drive the "hoUuschickie" up from the hauling-grounds to the 

 slaughter-fields near the two villages of St. Paul and St. George, and elsewhere on the islands, cannot be improved 



■•The attemiit, on my part, to get an authentic list of the numbers of fur-seals slain upon the Pribylov islands, prior to 186-3, has 

 simply been, to my mind, a partial failure. My investigation and search for such record, has satistied me that it does not exi.st; 

 memoranda of shipments only, each season, were made by the agents of the Russian company when the vessels took those skins from the 

 seal-islands to Sitka ; and of these skins again, count was only made of such as were exported to China or Russia, no mention being made 

 anywhere of the number which was consumed in Alaska by the company's large force of attacb<5s, or else destroyed at New Archangel. 

 This method of accounting for the yield from the Prlbylovs from l~(l(5 or 1&17 up to 18C7, naturally confuses a correct determiuatiuu as to 

 the sum total — renders it, peihaps, very inaccurate. This explanation is, at least, due to the reader. 



