Marcu 1, 1912] 
Mr. McLean should read this document. In 
Article 9 occurs this statement: 
The methods of driving and killing practised on 
the islands, as they have come under our observa- 
tion during the past two years, call for no criti- 
cism or objection. An adequate supply of bulls 
is present on the rookeries; the number of older 
bachelors rejected in the drives during the period 
in question is such as to safeguard in the immedi- 
ate future a similarly adequate supply; the breed- 
ing bulls, females and pups on the breeding rook- 
eries are not disturbed; there is no evidence or 
sign of impairment, by driving, of the vitality of 
males; the operations of driving and killing are 
conducted skillfully and without inhumanity. 
In Article 13 it is further stated: 
The polygamous habit of the animal, coupled 
with an equal birthrate of the two sexes, permits 
a large number of males to be removed with im- 
punity from the herd, while, as with other ani- 
mals, any similar abstraction of females checks or 
lessens the herd’s increase, or when carried 
further, brings about an actual diminution of the 
herd. 
Passing to the side of pelagic sealing the 
Conference of Experts has this to say: 
Article 11. Pelagic sealing’ involves the killing 
of males and females alike, without discrimina- 
tion and in proportion as the two sexes coexist in 
the sea... . In 1895 Mr. A, B, Alexander, on be- 
half of the government of the United States, found 
62.3 per cent. of females in the catch of the Dora 
Seward in Bering Sea, and in 1896 Mr, Andrew 
Halkett, on behalf of the Canadian government, 
found 84.2 per cent. in the catch of the same 
schooner in the same sea. 
These quotations from the findings of fact 
of the experts are more guarded than would 
have been the same statements made by the 
American Commission alone, but they state 
with sufficient clearness the effect of land kill- 
ing and pelagic killing in their relation to the 
herd. They offer little support to the conten- 
tion of Mr. McLean. 
_ At the same time President Jordan would 
recognize that the law of the survival of the 
fittest applies to the fur seals. The seat of the 
operation of this law is, however, at sea and 
not on the land. The fur seals spend the 
winter in the open ocean. They get all their 
SCIENCE 
337 
food at sea. The difficulty of obtaining food 
and the buffetings of the severe northern 
winter constitute the sifting process by which 
the weak and ineffective fur seal, male or fe- 
male, is ruthlessly weeded out, leaving only 
those that are absolutely fit to return to the 
islands in the spring. The killing gang does 
not select out the best. They are all alike 
good. It selects its animals by ages, an ani- 
mal of three years giving a larger and hence 
more valuable skin. 
But the question at issue is not a theoret- 
ical one. For the past fifteen years pelagic 
sealing has been the recognized sole cause of 
the decline of the fur seal herd. On July 7 
last the United States secured the agreement 
of Great Britain, Russia and Japan to a 
treaty for the abolition of this form of seal- 
ing. This treaty obligates the United States 
to pay to Canada and Japan fifteen per cent. 
each of its land catch, these nations buying off 
their pelagic sealers. It is only necessary to 
put this treaty in effect by act of Congress, the 
Sulzer bill now before the House having this 
- end in view. But opposition to the bill arises. 
It takes the form of an amendment providing 
for a “zapooska” or close season of fifteen 
years, coincident with the term. of the treaty, 
in which there shall be no land sealing. That 
is, the government is to have no land catch to 
share with the cooperating nations. They will 
become dissatisfied, withdraw from.the treaty, 
and pelagic sealing will be resumed. Such is 
the inevitable trend of this misguided effort to 
which the Camp Fire Club is wittingly or un- 
wittingly lending itself. 
The principle laid down by Mr. McLean 
may apply to pairing animals like the deer, 
bear, duck or quail. But the fur seal is a poly- 
gamous animal and has nothing in common 
with these wild creatures. Its true analogies 
are with the domestic animals—cattle, horses, 
sheep, poultry—which man handles for his 
comfort or profit and from which he regularly 
removes the superfluous males without damage 
to the breeding stock. Would Mr. McLean 
have us believe that the way to recuperate a 
herd of cattle that had fallen into decline 
