166 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



This is interesting because it is the record of the first killing on the seal-islands when the females were entirely 

 exempted from slaughter. 



The seal-islands were the exoheqijer of the Eussian- American Company: 1799-1825. — "The 

 Eussians in their colonial possession nnder Barauov, made, first, the seal-skin the basis of all transactions with 

 foreigners, by buying up whole cargoes of goods and provisions brought into this country by English and American 

 traders, and paying for the same' in this way. In other words, the seal-islands were the exchequer where 

 the Eussian authorities could with certainty turn and lay their hands upon the necessary currency. These 

 American, English, and other foreign sea-captains, having disposed of their supplies at Sitka or Kadiak in this 

 manner, took their fur-seal skins to China and disposed of them at a handsome advance for tea, rice, etc., in 

 exchange. The profits made by these foreigners having reached the ears of the Eussian home management of the 

 fur company controlling Alaska, it was ordered then that payments in fur-seal skins for these foreign supplies 

 should cease, and that the Eussians themselves would ship their skins to China and enjoy the emolument thereof. 

 The result of this action was that the Chinese market did not prove as valuable to them as it was to the foreigners; 

 it became overstocked, and a general stagnation and depression of the seal-business took place and continued until 

 a change of base, in this respect, was again made, and the skins of the fur-seal were ship|ied, together with the 

 beaver, in bulk to the great Chinese depot of Kiachta, where the Eussians exchanged these peltries for the desired 

 supplies of tea; the trade thereof assuming such immense proportions that the record is made where, in a single 

 year, the Eussian Fur Company paid to their government the enormous duty upon importations of tea alone of 

 2,000,000 silver rubles, or $1,500,000. This was the i>eriod in the history of the seal-islands when, for a second 

 time, and within the writing of Veniaminov, the seal life thereon was well nigh extermimvted. The first decimation 

 of these interests took place in the last decade of the eighteenth century and shortly after the discovery of the 

 islands, when, it is stated, 2,000,000 skins of these animals were rotting on the ground at one time. Eezanov 

 applied the correction very promptly in the first instance of threatened extermination of these valuable interests, 

 and when the second epoch of decimation occurred in 1834 to 183G, Baron Wrangell, admirably seconded by Father 

 Veniaminoy, checked its consumption. These are instances of care and far-sightedness which are refreshing to 

 contemplate." — Ivan Petrov: Rept. on Pop. and Reaources of Alasl;a ; Ex. Doc. No. 40, -iOth Gong., 3d Sess., 1881. 



Ieregularit - OF THE APPEARANCE OF PELAGIC FUR-SEALS. — While investigating the subject of the actual 

 numbers of fnr-seals secured at sea, outside of the Pribylov islands, I learned from Captain Lewis (Hudson Bay 

 Comj^any's " Otter") that these animals never appear from season to season along the northwest coast, in the same 

 general aggregate. For illustration, he cited the lact that in 1872, "immense numbers of fur seal pups and yearlings" 

 were observed in the ocean off Vancouver's island and the entrance to Fuca sti'aits, "but last year (1873) very few 

 of them again were seen." He thought that in the case of the unwonted abundance of fur-seals there during 1872, it 

 was due to the fact "that these young seals must have lost their beaiings, somewhat, in going north, and ran into 

 the coast for a better point of departure". He declared, also, that fur-seals had never, during his 30 year's service 

 on the northwestern coast, been known to appear in such great numbers before, nor did any other Hudson Bay man 

 know to the contrary. In 1872 he thought that "8,000 to 0,000 skins, chiefly pups and yearlings" would be a fair 

 estimate of the entire quantity taken ; for 1873 his figures showed only " COO or 700 skins — these were all older 

 c^es". 



EeCENT ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS IN REGARD TO PELAGIC BIRTH OF FUR-SEALS. — Allen [in his History of 



North American Pinnipeds, pp. 772-773] quotes a writer, who declares that any statement that the fur-seal breeds 

 alone on the Pribylov islands to the exclusion of all other grounds on the northwest coast of America and Alaska, 

 is "preposterous to his mind". This author clftims to know by his "own personal observation" that the fur-seal 

 does "have pups in open ocean off the entrance to Fuca straits"! On the contrary, I assert that it is a physical 

 impossibility for the Callorhinus to bring forth its young alive in the water; the pup would sink like a stone 

 instantly after birth, and the mother be wholly helpless to save it. 



I should not heed this statement of Mr. Swan, reinforced by that of an old sailor, so gravely entered by Allen, 

 were it not for his introduction on the following page (773) of an innocent announcement of fact by Prof. D. S. Jordan, 

 who by it is unfortunately made to appear in the light of sustaining the idle theory of pelagic birth, Jordan's 

 simple declaration that he had seen a "live fur-seal pup [June 1, 1880] at Cape Flattery, taken from an old seal 

 just killed, showing that the time of bringing them forth was just at hand", is correct as tar as it goes; but 

 remember, that this pui> had been alive in its mother's womb for eleven months prior to the day Jordan saw it; and, 

 ten days or three weeks later at the longest, this parent, if undisturbed, would have naturally brought it forth in 

 the fullness of time on either St. Paul or St. George, of the Pribylov group. She could have made the journey 

 there in six or seven days easily from Fuca straits, if she had been pressed to do so by the expiration of her period 

 of gestation. 



Naturally enough, the careful naturalist, like Allen, no matter how able, will be deceived now and then in 

 this manner, by untrustworthy statements made by those who are supposed to know by personal observation of 

 what they affirm. Mr. Swan has passed nearly an average lifetime on the northwest coast, chiefly in the waters of 

 Washington territory, and has rendered to natural science and to ethnology efficient and valuable service by his 



