TAKEN IN SAN FRANCISCO. 475 



The certainty that the seals caught in the I^orth Pacific are in facta 

 portion of the 'Pribilof herd, and that all are born and 

 reared for the first few months upon the islands of that ^,^1 ^"^ Northern 

 group, naturally leads the observer to regard them as 

 quite domesticated and belonging upon their island home. The more 

 orderly way to describe them, therefore, would be to couimeuce with 

 their birth upon the island and the beginning of their migrations rather 

 thiwi at the end of some one of their annual rounds away from home. 



I gather, too, from further research that the nature of their food and 

 the source whence it is obtained are better understood 

 than formerly. It is well known that the bulls eat 

 nothing during the rutting season and while taking care of their harems 

 on the islands. The cows, however, go and come at will after the pujis 

 are dropped, and may be found in large numbers with the mammary 

 glands distended with milk many miles from the breed- 

 ing grounds. The pups are not able to go with their ema es m water. 

 mothers and drown if by mischance they are thrown into the sea be- 

 fore they are three or four weeks old. They stay with the bulls on the 

 breeding grounds until about six or seven weeks old 

 before learning to swim. Tbe fur-seals of the north, ^J^'^'"" learning to 

 unlike the hair seals, do not seem to like the severe 

 cold weather and ice of the north, for they migrate to the soutliward 

 upon its approach, while those inhabiting the tropics, as at the Galla- 

 pagos Islands, leave the islands perhaps, but do not go, so far as is 

 known, to any great distance. I have no doubt the 

 northern seals of the Pribilof Islands spread over a Northern^ plcfac^ '° 

 very wide extent of the IsTorth Pacific in winter. They 

 are occasionally seen fiir off from land, but are much more numerous 

 within soundings. Their food is mainly fish, and they are naturally 

 found where that is most abundant. Seal-hunters say and statistics 

 show that where fish are most plentiful, as in latitude 55° to 56° north, 

 in Bering Sea, on the Shumagin Banks off the Alaskan Peninsula, and 

 off" the entrance to the Straits of Fuca, there the best catches of seals 

 are made. 



Up to nearly the time my work was published, little was known 

 about marine seal fishing. It was mostly confined to the Indians. A 

 few vessels were engaged in the trade from Victoria, but cut no figure 

 in commerce. The price of skins was comparatively low, and no great 

 inducements were offered to go into the business. It was when prices 

 advanced, and white hunters acquired the skill of following the move- 

 ments of the seals and in shooting from a boat, that the real danger of 

 the extermination of the species became apparent. Tlie records of the 

 Pribilof Islands show that not many seals were left on the rookeries 

 about 1840 to 1845, and very few then appeared in the vicinity of 

 the British Columbia coast. As those rookeries increased so the "Vic- 

 toria catch" increased, and amounted to about 5,000 skins in 1809. 

 (Marine Mammals, p. 154.) 



The annihilation of many rookeries formerly existing in different parts 

 of the world lias heretofore been accomplished by 

 wasteful, and sometimes wanton, destruction on the other ro^kiriel"'^ "^ 

 land. Now, the only known rookeries of any size are 

 guarded, and the vandals can not reach them ; but they seem to have 

 found methods of destruction almost as effectual as a projection 

 seal club, and they kill as cruelly and wastefully as sar^" 

 they formerly did on land. Other animals of less use 

 to mankind than the seals are protected by a close Pregnant females. 



