108 CARNIVORES. 
ert At the close of the last and during the early part of the present 
century fur-seals existed in countless numbers in many parts of the 
world; but human greed and folly have succeeded in so reducing their numbers in 
most regions that their pursuit is no longer profitable. Fortunately, however, 
both for science and for commerce, the seal rookeries of the Prybiloff Islands in 
Behring Sea have been placed under such restrictions as to render the annual 
slaughter compensated by the number of births. As an indication of the hosts 
of fur-seals formerly existing in various parts of the world, we may quote some 
figures given by Mr. Allen. Thus it is stated that in the year 1798 Captain 
Fanning, of the ship Betsy of New York, after obtaining a full cargo of skins from 
the island of Musapura, on the Chilian coast, estimated the number of fur-seals 
remaining on the island at from 500,000 to 700,000; and it appears that but 
little less than a million skins were subsequently taken from the same locality. 
Fur-seals were still found on the Chilian coast in 1815. From the Georgian 
Islands, at the extremity of South America, no less than 112,000 fur-seals are 
reported to have been taken in the year 1800, of which 57,000 were obtained by 
one American vessel. About this date the discovery of fur-seals in Australia 
was announced ; and in 1804 a single ship obtained 74,000 skins. Large numbers 
were also taken about the same period on Prince Edward’s Islands, lying a few 
hundred miles to the south-eastwards of the Cape of Good Hope. Again, between 
the years 1820 and 1821, more than 300,000 skins were taken from the South 
Shetland Islands alone; while it is estimated that at least 100,000 young seals 
were left to perish miserably, owing to the destruction of their mothers. In 1814 
and 1815 the number of skins exported from Antipodes Island, off the coast of 
New South Wales, was upwards of 400,000, of which, it is said, no less than a 
fourth were spoilt owing to bad curing, and on arrival in Europe were sold as 
manure. As early, however, as the year 1830 the number of fur-seals in the southern 
seas had been so greatly diminished that vessels generally made losing voyages; 
and at the present day such a voyage partakes largely of the nature of a lottery. 
During the voyage of H.M.S. Challenger, the late Professor Moseley states that 
a considerable number of fur-seals were observed about Kerguelen Land; two 
schooners having obtained seventy in one day, and twenty in another. The number 
of skins taken in the Prybiloff Islands will be referred to later on; but it may 
be mentioned that at the present time, according to Mr. F. A. Lucas, the annual 
slaughter of fur-seals throughout the world averages 185,000, while that of hair- 
seals reaches the enormous number of 875,000. 
THE SOUTHERN SEA-Lion (Otaria jubata). 
The southern or Patagonian sea-lion, of which a group is represented in the 
illustration on p. 103, is a hair-seal, and differs in certain respects both externally 
and internally from all the other species. It inhabits the Galapagos Islands, and 
the coasts of South America from Peru and Chili on the Pacific side, and from the 
Rio de la Plata on the Atlantic border, southwards to the Falkland Islands and 
Tierra del Fuego, Externally this species is distinguished from all the others by 
the long hair of the neck, which forms a kind of mane; although this mane is but 
