COUNTER-CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 225 



ing scarcity of ^'killable" seals; ever larger numbers of 

 those of other classes were necessarily driven in the efforts 

 to secure the "quota," and of those thus uselessly driven 

 many were included again and again in succeeding drives. 

 While as the "hauling-grounds" became, in consequence of 

 the decreased number of bachelor seals, less and less clearly 

 separated from the breeding-grounds, considerable numbers 

 of females engaged in suckliug their young upon these 

 grounds became unavoidably included in the drives. At 

 the time at which Mr. H. W. Elliott recorded his observa- observations 

 tions of 1872-74 in his official Eeport which formed part of eTuou,' 18^2-74^' 

 the records of the 10th Census of the United States, and 

 was reprinted by the United States Government, with 

 slight alterations, in the " Fishery Industries of the United 

 States," he held the view that the mode of taking and kill- 

 ing the fur-seal upon the Pribyloff" Islands could not be 

 improved upon; yet even in this monograph, which has 

 ever since remained the principal source of information on 

 the fur-seal of the North Pacific, the following references to 

 driving are found: 



A drove of seals on hard or firm grassy ground, in cool and moist Census Eeport, 

 weather, may be driven with safety at the rate of half-a-mile an hour; PP" '^^>'^^- 

 they can be urged along, with the expenditure of a great many lives, 

 however, at the speed of 1 mile or IJ miles per hour; but this is sel- 

 dom done. 



Further on he speaks of the disposition of the old seals 

 to fight — 



rather than endure the panting torture of travel : 



and on the next page writes : 



LOSS OF SEALS DUE TO "DRIVING" AT THAT TIME. 



The progression of the whole caravan is a succession of starts, 

 263 spasmodic and irregular, made every few minutes, the seals 

 pausing to catch their breath, and make, as it were, a plaintive 

 survey and mute protest. Every now and then a seal will get weak 

 iu the lumbar regiou, and then drag its posteriors along for a short 

 distance, finally drop breathless and exhausted, quivering and pant- 

 ing, not to revive for hours — days, perhaps — and often never. During 

 the driest driving days, on those days when the temperature does not 

 combine with wet fog to keep the path moist and cool, quite a large 

 number of the weakest animals in the droves will be thus laid out 

 and left on the track. 



» * # * » 



This prostration from exertion will always happen, no matter how 

 carefully they are driven, and in the longer drives, such as 2^, and 

 5 miles from Zapadnie on the west, or Polovina on tlie north, to the 

 A'illage of St. Paul, as much as three or 4 per cent, of the whole drive 

 will be thus drojipcd on the road; hence I feel satisfied, from my obser- 

 vation and close attention to this feature, that a consider.able number 

 of those that are thus rejected from the drove, and are able to rally 

 and return to the water, die subsequently from internal injuries sus- 

 tained on the trip, superinduced by this over-exertion. 



B S, PT VIII 15 



