4 6 



NATURE 



[July 13, 191 1 



Malpighi first saw capillaries in the frog's lung or in the 

 bladder— probably it was the latter. Although, of 

 course, he was not the first to practise injection methods, 

 we may note that Malpighi traced the course of the vessels 

 bj i<n inflating them; (b) injecting mercury; (c) injecting 

 coloured fluids. Both Sir Michael Foster and your corre- 

 spondent appear to have overlooked the fact that the ex- 

 pression " Magnum certum opus oculis video " is not 

 Malpighi's, but a translation from Homer, and is intended, 

 I imagine, to be translated after the Malpighian manner 

 as : " I see with my eves a truly great work." 



F. J. Cole. 

 University College, Reading, July 4. 



Arising out of the letter on the above subject in 

 Nature of June 29, by Dr. D. Fraser Harris, is the true 

 date of the momentous discovery of what is the oxygen 

 , irrier of the blood. This discovery is put down to Sir 

 G. G. Stokes, and the date some years later than 1862. 



1 wish to direct attention to a fact hitherto overlooked, 

 namely, that Dr. John Roberts, of Plas Eryr, Clwtybont, 

 Carnarvonshire, was the first to say (and to publish iti 

 thai the colouring matter of the blood (haemoglobin") was 

 the oxygen carrier. This can be verified by perusal of his 

 thesis (for M.D. Edin., published in i860, and now lying 

 in tin- archives of Edinburgh University) on "Pigment." 



Dr. Roberts is still alive and well. 



R. Cadwaladr Roberts. 



I [eathfield, Cardigan. 



THE FUR-SEAL QUESTION. 



FOR some time past a conference has been sitting 

 in Washington, in which representatives from 

 Great Britain, or rather Canada, Russia, Japan, and 

 the United States; have taken part, for the purpose 

 of drawing up new regulations for the conduct of 

 the Bering Sea seal fishery, and for the protection and 

 restoration of the herd. The Times of June 28 con- 

 tained an account of the findings of the conference, 

 and in the issue of July S its correspondent at Wash- 

 ington reports that the new convention was signed 

 on July 7. The full text of the agreement 

 has not yet come to hand, but its main pro- 

 visions, which are of great international import- 

 ance, and of great interest to all naturalists, are 

 said to be as follows. Pelagic sealing will be totally 

 prohibited to all subjects of the participating countries 

 for fifteen vears, and measures will be taken to induce 

 other countries to prevent its being carried on under 

 cover of their flag; the United States and Russia, 

 which own practically all that remain of the seal herds 

 of the North Pacific, will pledge 30 per cent, of their 

 catches for the purpose of paying a specified yearly 

 dole to Canada and Japan to compensate them for 

 abstention from the fishery, and the United States 

 (it is said) will advance 40,1100/. to each of the latter 

 countries for the immediate compensation of persons 

 engaged in tie- industry; the contracting Powers will 

 admit no skins to their ports the origin of which 

 U not proper!) certified; and, lastly, regulations are 

 laid down as to the method of killing sink on land, 

 and as to the establishment of guards upon the 

 rookeries. These resolutions are, we suppose, ^.t ill 

 subject to ratification bj th< several Governments, but 



nevertheless we have g I reason to believe, and 



everv reason to hope, thai the wis,- and liberal pro- 

 thus stated ma\ di ipted and cai ried 



Mil., effect. The Washington correspondent of The 

 Tunes reports that, so far as can be 1 athered, the 

 convention will be accepted in the Senate. Tt will 

 1 ome into force on I >ei eml 



ring Sea Arbitration of 180,3 was an affair 

 of such international m al ii is far from 



being forgotten. It is unnecessary and impossible to 



here into a review ol thai great debate, of all 

 the caiis,-s ihat led to it. 1 of tin- minor questions 



NO. 2176. VOL. 87] 



that arose for a few years after its close. We may 

 simply remind our readers that its chief result was 

 the delimitation of a zone of sixty miles around the 

 Pribylov Islands, within which zone pelagic sealing 

 was prohibited during the season when the herd were 

 living and breeding upon the islands, while at the 

 same time the use of firearms was entirely prohibited 

 to the pelagic sealers. A few years later pelagic seal- 

 ing was entirely prohibited, both by America and 

 Russia, in the case of their own subjects. But while 

 it is impossible to enter here into either diplomatic or 

 commercial history, a few words upon the general 

 aspect of the case, and especially upon the natural 

 history of the fur seals, may be of interest at the 

 present moment. 



The true fur seals, forming the old genus Otaria 

 (now broken up into subgenera), belong to the more 

 extensive family of the Otariidae, or eared seals, the 

 various members of which differ considerably in their 

 habits. For example, Steller's sea-lion (Eumetopias), 

 a large, ungainly animal, is sparsely distributed on a 

 multitude of coasts and islands around the North 

 Pacific; while, on the other hand, it is characteristic 

 of the fur seals, throughout the whole area of their 

 distribution in the Pacific and Southern Oceans, to 

 resort to but few local breeding-places, where, in 

 prosperous times, they congregate in great multitudes. 

 Naturalists are not quite agreed as to the number of 

 species of these fur seals, but the best-known breed- 

 ing-places are, or have been (besides those in the 

 Bering Sea), Robben Island at the Cape of Good 

 Hope, the Auckland Islands, the Falklands, South 

 Georgia and many other islands in the Southern 

 Ocean, Lobos Island, at the mouth of the River Plate, 

 Guadalupe, off southern California, and the Gala- 

 pagos. In the Northern Pacific by far the greatest 

 of the rookeries are those of the Pribylov Islands. 

 St. Paul and St. George; next in order come those of 

 the Russian Commander Islands, Bering and Copper 

 Islands; while in the Sea of Okhotsk there is still a 

 small rookery on Robben Island (now ceded to Japan), 

 and on the Kuriles a number of rookeries were 

 formerly known but are now either extinct or very 

 nearly so. Dr. Jordan and his American colleagues 

 ascribe specific differences even to the seals of these 

 comparatively neighbouring breeding-grounds, and it 

 is highly probable, if not certain, that the Pribylov 

 seals from the eastern part of the Bering Sea, and the 

 Commander Island seals from its western part, form 

 absolutely separate communities, the long southward 

 migrations of which in winter time follow different 

 routes, the one towards the shores of British Colum- 

 bia and the oilier towards those of northern Japan. 

 For an unknown period, but probably for centuries, 

 they have been exposed to attack by expert native 

 fishermen, spearing them at sea in the course of tlii se 

 winter wanderings. 



During tin- greater part of last century the history 

 of tlii- seal herds, of all species and in all 

 their various haunts, is a long record of pillage and 

 extermination; ami nowadays the extent to which 

 they have been reduced may !>'■ measured by the 

 simple fact that a sealskin coal is a thing we vi ry 

 seldom see. In a comparatively few eases, especially on 

 ili.' American and Russian Islands and the LTruguayan 

 I obos Island, tin' herds have long been placed under 



pi r control while on their breeding-grounds; and. 



s, far a- we are aware, the Lobos rookerv, though 

 small (for the island is less than a mile long), and 

 though right in the track of commerce and close to 

 a considerable town, is still maintained in comparative 

 prosperity. But though on the Pribylov and Com- 

 mander Islands tlii' remains of the once immense 

 herds are Mill considerable, vet they represent but a 



