100 COUNTER-CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



BUT IS AN INVADER ON ITS BREKDING RESORTS. 



Their former places of secure retreat were invaded by man, while, 

 durinj^ the greater part of each year, they remained exposed on 



115 the open ocean as before to innumerable accidents, and entirely 

 beyond the control or possible protection of those in charge of 



the breeding-islands. The inroads of the. seal-killers on the islands 

 might be modified in kind or in degree, but their general tendency 

 could not be reversed. 



SHOULD HE ABANDON THESE ISLANDS, THE SEALS WOULD 



PROFIT. 



British Com- SincG the occupatioTi by man of tlie breeding-islands, the 

 pdrt^parls.?5^3^6' steps taken in tlie interest of fur-seal life ui)on tbeni have 

 consisted solely of measures more or less effective to pre- 

 vent the disturbance of the animals, and to leave them as 

 much as is possible, in view of the demands made for kill- 

 ing, to themselves. If these islands should be entirely aban- 

 doned by man, and left unvisited by him, the fur-seals, so 

 far from suffering in anyresi)ect, would tend gradually, but 

 certainly, to revert to tlie favourable conditions formerly 



Ibid., para. 32. existiug; aiid would undoubtedly increase in numbers till 

 checked by such natural causes as tend to set limits to the 

 increase of all animals. 



SEALS ARE NOT FED ON THE ISLANDS; THEY LEAVE 



EMACIATED. 



All the ideas commonly attaching to the word " domes- 

 tication" are wanting in this case. Not only are the lur- 

 seals not fed by man, but they do not obtain a ])article of 

 food while upon the Islands, and little, if any, while in the 

 adjacent territorial waters. Their resort in the I'ribyloft" 

 Bull. Mus. Islands is strictly in connection with the requirements of 

 ii,To.'if'p."37.^°^' tlie breeding period. They arrive there fat and in good 

 '"Monograpii couditiou, and, after their i)rolonged period of fasting, leave 

 can^iMmii^eds"' lu '^ emaciated state for their feeding-grounds in the great 

 p. 227, &c. tracts of ocean to the southward. 



MR. H. AV. ELLIOTT. 



Mr. H. W. Elliott, in his Monograph, published in 1881, 

 writes as follows on the amount of control which man is 

 capable of exercising over the fur-seal: 



United States I am free to say that it is not within the power of human manage- 



Censu.s Keport, ment to promote this end [an increase in the number of seals] to the 



^' ■ slightest appreciable degree over its present extent and condition as 



it stands in the state of nature, heretoibre described. It cannot fail 



to be evident, from my detailed narration of the habits and life of the 



fur-seal on these islands during so large a part of every year, that 



could man have the same supervision and control over this animal 



during the whole season which he has at his command while they visit 



the land, he might cause them to multiply and increase, as he would 



so many cattle, to an, indefinite number — only limited by time and the 



means of feeding them. But the case in <(uesti(m, unfortunately, is 



one where the fur-seal is taken by demands for food, atbiastsix 



116 months out of every year, far beyond the reach or even cogni- 

 zance of any man, where it is all this time exposed to many 



known powerful and destructive natural enemies, and probably many 

 others, equally so, unknown, which prey uj)oii it, and, in accord:inco 

 with that well recognized l.wr of luitnre, keeps this seal lite at a certain 



