NOVEMBEK 20, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



737 



by name, who made a special investigation of 

 the seal herd in 1820. Bishop Veniaminof s 

 account of the seals was published at St. 

 Petersburg, in 1843, in a work known as the 

 " Zapiski," and comprises pages 349 to 381 of 

 volume 2 of that work. A partial translation 

 of this article has been in existence for some 

 time as an appendix to the fur-seal monograph 

 of Henry W. Elliott, published in 1881, as 

 part of the tenth census. Recently there has 

 been made a complete and more accurate 

 translation, by Professor Eaphael Zon, of the 

 U. S. Forest Service, which appears as an ap- 

 pendix to a report on the fur-seal herd by the 

 writer to the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries for 

 1912, as yet unpublished. It is from this 

 translation the quotations which are to follow 

 are made. 



The extract from the report of Tanovsky 

 appears in a letter from the Board of Admin- 

 istration of the Russian-American Company, 

 dated at St. Petersburg, March 15, 1821, and 

 constitutes Letter 6 in the volume of fac- 

 similes in the proceedings of the Paris Tri- 

 bunal of Arbitration of 1893. A translation of 

 the letter appears at page 58 of volume 2 of 

 the same proceedings in an appendix to the 

 case of the United States. This translation is 

 paralleled by a British version at page 323 of 

 volume 8 of the proceedings, being a part of 

 the British counter case. 



These translations of Yanovsky's report dif- 

 fer in one important particular and the essen- 

 tial part may be here reproduced in parallel 

 columns for comparison. The translations are 

 as follows: 



American Version, 

 Every year a greater 

 number of young bach- 

 elor seals is being killed, 

 while for propagation 

 there remain only the 

 females, sekatch, and 

 half sekatch. Conse- 

 auently only the old 

 breeding animals re- 

 main, and if any of the 

 young breeders are not 

 killed by autumn, they 

 are sure to be killed in 

 the following spring. 



British Version. 

 Every year the young 

 bachelor seals are killed, 

 and only the cows, se- 

 katch, and half sekatch 

 are left to propagate the 

 species; it follows that 

 only the old seals are 

 left, while if any of the 

 bachelors remain alive 

 in the autumn, they are 

 sure to be killed the 

 next spring. 



The difFerence obviously lies in the use of 

 word "bachelors" instead of "young breed- 

 ers," in the British version. Accepting this 

 translation the criticism of Tanovsky is that 

 too many bachelor seals were being killed and 

 hence the decline of the herd. 



A study of the context, however, readily 

 shows that the word translated " bachelors " in 

 one case and " young breeders " in the other 

 is contrasted with " old breeding animals " in 

 the one case, " old seals " in the other. Inter- 

 nal evidence therefore favors the American 

 translation — "young breeders." This trans- 

 lation is not in itself a logical one, since the 

 animals under consideration are not " breed- 

 ers " at all, but animals which have not yet 

 attained breeding age. Mr. M. Lippitt Lar- 

 kin, a Russian scholar, formerly instructor in 

 Stanford University, in translating this letter, 

 has pointed out the fact that, since the Rus- 

 sian, like English, is deficient in a feminine 

 form for the word " holostiaki," here translated 

 " bachelors," the plural might reasonably be 

 taken to cover both sexes, as " men," in 

 phrases like " the children of men," in Eng- 

 lish, is understood to include both sexes. He 

 suggests that "unmated animals," both sexes 

 being understood, would be a possible, even 

 preferable, translation. If no other light on 

 the question existed than is contained in the 

 letter itself, it would not be necessary to ac- 

 cept the narrow translation of " bachelors " 

 used in the British text. 



Fortunately, however, we do not have to de- 

 pend solely upon the letter itself. The report 

 of Yanovsky was made to the Russian authori- 

 ties at St. Petersburg. The letter, giving its 

 gist, is one addressed the following spring, 

 that is, in 1821, to the administrator of the 

 Russian-American Company on the seal is- 

 lands, for his information and instruction. In 

 the article of Bishop Veniaminof, page 369, 

 we find this statement as translated by Pro- 

 fessor Zon: 



Only in 1822 Muraview, the head administra- 

 tor, ordered to leave every year young seals for 

 breeding. 



The head administrator did not order 

 " bachelors " left, but " young seals," which 



