VENIAMINOFF. 



297 



stance, on the island of St. Paul 11,000 seals were spared for three years, 

 and in the following three years 7,000 bachelors were killed there, i. e., 

 almost two-thirds of the number which had been spared; and, on the 

 other hand, from 8,500 seals which had been spared, for two years on 

 St. George, less than 3,000 were obtained, i. e., little more than a third. 

 What is the cause of this variation? Is it because in some years more 

 bachelors or males are born than in others ? Or are there years in 

 which many cows have no pups? Both [suppositions] are probably 

 true. 



I therefore, in accordance with the opinion of the hunters, estimate 

 that of the number of seals born in one year half are males and half are 

 females. 



In proof of the many facts with regard to seals related above, Table 

 No. 1 is hereto annexed, giving the number of seals killed on the 

 Pribilof Islands from 1817 to 1838. From this table it appears that — 



1. There was not one ordinary year in which the number of the seals 

 killed equaled the number in preceding years; it was continually grow- 

 ing less and less. 



2. The decrease of the seals is not uniform ; sometimes it is a six- 

 teenth, sometimes a tenth, sometimes a fifth, and even two-sevenths, 

 but, on an average, an eighth. 



3. Hence, under the ordinary course of the killing, within less than 

 fifteen years the whole seal species may be exterminated. 



4. The least decrease is usually at a time when there was a less 

 number of bachelors than in the preceding years (i. e., when the young 

 seals were not entirely destroyed), and the greatest decrease occurred 

 when the number of bachelors had been less. 



5. The number of bachelors is the true measure or criterion of the 

 actual number of seals; in other words, if the bachelors increase in 

 numbers, the young females, also, increase, and vice versa. 



G. The bachelors separate from the herd, and assemble in herds apart, 

 not earlier than in their third year, as was seen by the close-times on 

 the islands of St. Paul and St. George (1822, 1823, 1824, 1835, 1830, 1837, 

 and 1826-'27). 



7. The decrease of the number of seals on the island of St. George 

 after a close-time of two years (1826-'27), continued for two years and 

 steadily at the rate of one-fifth. 



8. In the fifth year after the first close-time, the decrease may be re- 

 garded as having ceased; in the sixth year there was an increase of a 

 twelfth, and in the seventh year of one-seventh, and subsequently the 

 number of seals remained almost the same for three years. 



9. If no close- time had been observed on St. George in 1826-'27, 

 then, assuming the decrease as only an eighth (see sec. 2), not a single 

 seal would have been left on St. George by 1840 or 1842, as appears by 

 the following table : 



The decrease in recent years, however, must be estimated at more 

 than one-fifth, because the smaller the herd the fewer the bulls, 



