FUR SEALS AND OTHER LIFE, PRIBILOF ISLANDS, 1914. IO5 



(6) By provision for the annual sale of skins, the law makes it difficult to regulate 

 the time of the sale to market conditions. Moreover, a small output of skins during 

 the suspension of commercial sealing may cause the demand for them to diminish, and a 

 sudden large supply upon the resumption of sealing is likely to meet with reduced prices. 



(7) The blue fox industry, capable of yielding $50,000 or more per annum, is 

 reduced to small proportions through lack of seal meat for food. 



(8) The continued suspension of sealing and the subsequent reserves provided by 

 law will create a large excess of males, and failure to take and market their skins at the 

 proper time will cause an estimated minimum loss of $2,700,000. 



(9) A part of this loss falls upon Great Britain and Japan, to each of which we are 

 by treaty bound to deliver 15 per cent of the annual take under commercial sealing. 



(10) The suspension of sealing prevents the immediate determination of the pro- 

 portion of seals which naturally survive to killable age, a most vexed and vital matter, 

 which must be settled before any explicit regulations based on soimd principles can be 

 formulated. 



(11) The development of general efficiency for the future managment of a very 

 large and profitable business, the training of both white and native employees, the 

 installation of modern methods, and the numerous preparations necessary for adapta- 

 tion to new conditions are largely dependent upon the resumption of active sealing at 

 the earliest possible date. 



(12) The law now offers no compensations for its many disadvantages. It has 

 served a purpose as a remedy for a shortage of male life, but though a shortage existed 

 when the law was enacted there is no shortage now, and none is likely to occur in the 

 future, whether the law be in effect or not. 



THE FOXES. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 



The foxes of the Pribilof Islands belong to a group ordinarily known from their 

 drcumpolar habitat as arctic foxes and considered as forming a genus distinct from 

 other foxes. The animals of these islands have become slightly differentiated by long 

 insular isolation from their relatives inhabiting the other parts of the north, and bear 

 the name Alopex prihilofensis (Merriam). 



The so-called white and blue foxes are not different species but merely represent 

 two color phases of the same animal, the white being the winter coat of the normal 

 phase, which in summer is characterized by a brown back and shoulders and tawny 

 sides. The blue fox is the abnormal dark color phase, sooty gray in summer, and bluish 

 gray in winter. This sooty phase is found practically throughout the range of the animal, 

 at least in America, but is usually much less abundant than the ordinary phase and in 

 some sections is so rare as to be practically unknown. 



On the Pribilof Islands, however, the sooty phase so outnumbers the ordinary phase 

 as to be practically the normal state. According to old accounts, blue foxes only were 

 found on the islands when they were first discovered, and the white ones came (pre- 

 simiably on the ice) a few winters afterwards. This is probably an error, as it is much 

 more likely that the white were present at first but were overlooked until their white 

 winter condition forced itseff on the attention of the discoverers. It is undoubtedly 

 true, however, that foxes do occasionally reach the islands from the north on the pack ice. 



