MAKING THE FUR SEAL ABUNDANT 
ters and among themselves, and some- 
times, awaiting a favorable opportunity, 
invade the harems and carry off the cows 
by main force. 
The young females, arriving late in the 
season, do not generally resort to the 
hauling grounds, but frequent the disor- 
ganized rookeries and spend much of the 
time playing with the pups. 
The full-grown male fur seal is 6 feet 
long, has a spread of nearly 6 feet be- 
tween the tips of his outstretched fore- 
flippers, and weighs up to 450 pounds. 
The adult female has an average length 
of 4 feet and an average weight of 75 
ponds. The pups weigh 11 pounds at 
birth and 25 to 30 pounds by the time 
they have become proficient in swimming, 
at the age of three months. 
At times, especially early in the season, 
all the seals on land sleep the greater 
part of the time. A person may note a 
harem of which every member, even the 
vigilant master and the hungry pups, is 
sound asleep. 
The seals furthermore have the fac- 
ulty of sleeping in the water, resting on 
the back with the long hind-flippers held 
aloft or snugly folded along the body, 
and with the nose protruding from the 
surface. It is this habit of sleeping at 
sea which enables the hunter to approach 
close enough to hurl a spear or dis- 
charge a load of buckshot, and has re- 
sulted in pelagic sealing with all of its 
attendant evils. 
While individual seals or entire ha- 
rems may be asleep, the rookeries as a 
whole always present an animated scene, 
accompanied by a steady volume of dis- 
cordant sounds both day and night. The 
bulls frequently utter savage roars of de- 
fiance, and keep up a constant scolding, 
chuckling, and whistling in order to main- 
tain discipline, and the cows have a shrill 
bleat and the pups an answering cry far 
more penetrating than the calls of sheep 
and lamb. 
Off each rookery there is throughout 
the season a party of swimming, playing, 
sleeping seals, and an incessant passage 
of seals to and from the rookery and 
hauling grounds. Some of them are 
1147 
bachelors, but most of them are cows, 
whose necessity for going to sea for food 
is greater than that of any other mem- 
bers of the herd, for they have to sustain 
themselves and also provide nourishment 
for their pups. 
On the approach of cold weather, the 
cows and pups leave the islands together. 
Up to that time the pups have subsisted 
solely on milk, and they then have to 
learn to catch their own food, consisting 
of fish and squid. Inasmuch as the natu- 
ral mortality among the pups in their 
first year is fully 50 per cent, it is evi- 
dent that they experience many vicissi- 
tudes in the tempestuous seas to which 
they commit themselves. The males fol- 
low shortly after, but some remain about 
the islands throughout the winter in mild 
seasons, and the natives always depend 
on seals for food in December and Janu- 
ary. 
EXPLOITATION OF THE FUR SEALS BY 
RUSSIA 
Fur seals and hair seals have always 
been regarded as legitimate objects of 
exploitation, and all governments having 
real or assumed property rights in herds 
of seals have sanctioned their killing, 
under restriction, for fur, leather, oil, 
food, ete. 
Beginning in 1786 and continuing until 
the sale of Alaska, Russians were almost 
continuously engaged in killing fur seals 
on the Pribilof Islands. In the earlier 
years there was a promiscuous scramble 
among rival companies, so that to main- 
tain order and properly regulate the tak- 
ing of seals the government was forced 
in 1799 to give the privilege to a single 
company, created by imperial decree and 
having among its shareholders members 
of the imperial family and the nobility. 
This association, known as the Russian- 
American Company, enjoyed a monopoly 
of this business as long as Russia had 
control of Alaska. An ukase issued by 
Alexander I in 1821 for the regulation 
of the company had as one of its feat- 
ures the prohibition of foreign vessels 
within 100 miles of the Russian coasts 
and islands. This ukase involved Russia 
