196 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
Had the great southern rookeries been protected by Government, it is altogether 
probable, according to all authorities, that they would to-day yield many thousands 
of skins, in some cases equal to the valuable returns of the Pribyloft Group. 
In proceeding up the Southern Pacific from Masafuera we pass St. Felix, the Lobos 
Islands, off Peru, and the Galapagos Islands, on which, as well as on other islands 
in that ocean, the fur seal once was found, but whence it has been exterminated. 
North of the equator we meet, first, the Gaudaloupe Islands, where in 1878 there 
were a few fur seals, presumably migrations from the Pribyloff Group. Moving 
northward, along the Californian and north-west coast, the fur seal is found in 
winter and early spring on its way to the great breeding grounds on the Pribyloft 
Islands. Itis during this migration that the Pacific sealing-schooners of British 
Columbia and San Francisco capture them, and it is probable that if the fleet 
increases in size, with a corresponding increase in the number of seals taken, there 
will ere long be an appreciable decrease in the number of seals on the Pribyloft 
Islands. This cannot but be the result, for many seals are killed and not secured, 
and there is the same indiscriminate slaughter as regards young and old, male and 
female, that was practised at the southern rookeries. The statistics showing the 
present growing condition of the north-west coast fishery, and the efforts of the 
fishermen to follow the seals even into Behring’s Sea, are already a matter of 
record, and need not be repeated here, except to refer to the Annual Reports of the 
Department of Fisheries of Canada. In the Report for 1886 will be found (on p. 249) 
the names of the British Columbian fleet, aggregating 20 vessels, manned by 79 sail- 
ors and 380 hunters, and their catch is given at 38,917 skins, as compared with 138 
vessels, taking 17,700 skins, in 1882. The American vessels in this fleet in 1880 and 
and their catch is given by Mr. Swan in sec. 5, vol. ii, of the quarto Report of the 
United States Fish Commission. 
It is not necessary that I refer to the condition of the rookeries on the Pribyloff 
Islands. There can be no question concerning the advisability of regulating the 
number of animals to be killed, and the selection of such animals as will not inter- 
fere with the breeding of the species. The history of the islands at the beginning 
of the century, when there was an indiscriminate slaughter of fur seals, and the pro- 
tection of the animals in 1808 and thereafter by the Russian and American Govern- 
ments, is fully told by Veniaminov and by Elliott, and need not be repeated 
178 here. (Veniaminov’s ‘“ Zapieskie,” &c., St. Petersburgh, 1842, vol. ii, p. 568, 
quoted by H. W. Elliott in ‘‘Seal Islands of Alaska,” pp. 140-145, vol. viii, 
Tenth Census Report. ) 
The Commander Islands (Behring and Copper Islands), in Behring’s Sea, and 
Robben Reef, near Saghalien, in the Okhotsk Sea, are leased by the Alaska Com- 
mercial Company, and are protected by the Russian Government in much the same 
manner that the Pribyloff Islands are protected by the United States Government. 
A description of the sealindustry on those islands is given by Professor Nordenskiold 
in ‘‘ Voyage of the Vega,” a translation of a portion of his Report being given by 
Mr. Elliott on pp. 109-115 in ‘‘ Seal Islands of Alaska.” At Robben Reef it is impos- 
sible to establish a station, the rock being often wave-washed; but the Alaska Com- 
pany send men there in the season, to gather from 1,500 to 4,000 skins each year. 
The agent of the Russian Government confers with the Alaska Company’s agent 
each year to determine the number of skins that shall be taken in the Commander 
Islands. 
The seals taken by the Japanese are those migrating from the Commander Group, 
and are not secured in large numbers, the average being about 4,000, though some 
years as many as 11,000 are taken. 
