500 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
general interest of its own citizens, as well as for those of other countries, demands 
that the extermination or serious depletion of the seals on their breeding-isliands 
should be prevented. It is probably not necessary for this purpose that the killing 
of seals on these islands should be entirely prohibited. Both Elliott and Bryant 
show good reason for believing that a large number of seals may be killed annually 
without reducing the average aggregate number which can find suitable breeding- 
grounds on these islands, and after the very great reduction in numbers which 
occurred, owing to an inclement season abont 1836 (Elliott), or 1842 (Bryant), the 
seals increased very rapidly again, and in a few years being nearly as numerous as 
in 1873, when the total number on the islands was estimated at over 4,700,000. 
By retaining an efticient control of the number of seals to be killed on the Pribylov 
Islands, and by fixing this number anew each season in accordance with cireum- 
stances, the United States Government will be in position to counteract the effect of 
other causes tending to diminish the number of seals, whether climatic or resulting 
from the killing of a large number at sea. There is no reason to apprehend that the 
number of seals which might thus be safely killed on the islands would, under any 
circumstances, be so small as to fail to cover the cost of the administration and pro- 
tection of the islands. If such a policy as this, based on the common interests in 
the preservation of the seals, were adopted, it might be reasonable to agree (for the 
purpose of safeguarding the islands and for police purposes) that the jurisdiction 
of the United States in this matter should be admitted to extend to some greater 
distance than this usual one of 3 marine miles, though, as shown further on, the 
necessary distance would not be great. 
The situation of the Pribylov Islands and the habits of the seal together cause the 
problem of its preservation to be one of extreme simplicity if approached from the 
point of view of protection on and about the islands, but one of very great difficulty 
if looked at from any other standpoint. ‘The long-continued and presumably accu- 
rate observations which have been made on the habits of the seals show that during 
the entire breeding season they are very closely contined to the immediate shores of 
the breeding islands, and that neither in arriving nor in departing from these islands 
do they form schools or appear together in such numbers as to render promiscuous 
slaughter at sea possible. The old bulls actually remain on shore during the entire 
breeding season, while the females, though leaving their young from time to time 
for the water, are described as haunting the immediate vicinity of the shores just 
beyond the line of surf. Even the bachelor seals (Elliott, op. cit., pp. 45, 64, et passim; 
Allen, op. cit., p. 386), which constitute a distinct body while ashore and are not 
actually engaged in breeding or protecting the young, are said to remain close to 
the shore. If, however, any seals are to be found at this time going to or returning 
from the sea at some distance from land, these belong to the ‘“‘bachelor” class, which 
is the very class selected for the killing by the fur Company. The young 
453 females, after leaving the islands in the year of their birth, do not return at 
all till after reaching maturity in their third year. (Allen, op. cit., p. 402.) 
The evidence obtained by Captain Bryant shows that while ‘‘small groups of 
small seals (apparently 1 and 2 years old)” are met with at large in Behring’s Sea 
during July and August, no considerable numbers of schools are to be found. (Allen, 
op. cit., p. 411.) 
It isthus apparent that the perfect security of the seals actually engaged in breeding 
and suckling their young may be secured without extending the limits of protection 
beyond the usual distance of 3 miles from the shores of the breeding islands, but 
that for the purpose of increasing the facilities of supervision a somewhat wider 
limit might reasonably be accorded. Possibly by defining an area inclosed by lines 
joining points 3 miles off the extreme headlands and inlets of the Pribylov group, 
an ample and unobjectionable area of protection might be establishe. 
It is allowed by all naturalists that the habits of the fur-seals of the Southern 
Hemisphere are identical with those of the seal of the North Pacific, and it is there- 
fore admissible to quote the observations of Dampier on Juan Fernandez Island in 
further confirmation of the fact that these animals go only for a very short distance 
from land during the breeding season, even when in immense multitudes on the 
shore. Dampier writes: 
“‘Here are always thousands, I might say possibly millions of them, either sitting 
on the bays or going and coming in the sea round the islands, which is covered with 
them (as they lie at the top of the water playing and sunning themselves) for a mile 
or two from the shore.” (‘«A New Voyage Round the World,” 1703; quoted by Allen, 
op. cit., p. 394. ) 
These rookeries have, like others in the south, been long since depleted and 
abandoned. 
The circumstance that the female fur-seal becomes pregnant within a few days 
after the birth of its young, and that the period of gestation is nearly twelve months, 
with the fact that the skins are at all times fit for market (though for a few weeks, 
extending from the middle of August to the end of September, during the progress 
