116 THE FUR SEALS OF THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 
deaths from Uncinaria were greater then in proportion as the herd was greater. The 
whitened boues of pups on Tolstoi sands, in areas not occupied in 1891, show plainly 
that it antedates even that time, and there is no reason to suppose that it did not exist 
throughout the period when the herd was inits prime. It was probably the determining 
check which prevented the herd’s indefinite increase. We may infer from the fighting 
and struggling of the limited number of bulls at present on the rookeries that in a 
state of nature, when the males were practically equal to the females, the destruction 
from such fighting among all classes of seals must have been enormous. 
THE REAL CAUSE OF DECLINE AN ARTIFICIAL ONE. 
We may therefore assume that the cause or causes which have lead to the decline 
of the herd are not inherent in the herd itself. In short, we may come at once to the 
conclusion arrived at in 1892 that interference by man, and that alone, is chargeable 
with the decline. 
LAND AND SEA KILLING. 
There are two ways and two only by which the acts of man have come to affect 
the fur-seal herd. These are (1) by killing on land, which has been practiced ever 
since the islands were discovered in 1786, and for the last half century, at least, 
without change; and (2) killing at sea, which has been practiced to a limited extent 
by the Indians off the west coast of America from a very early date, but which since 
about 1880 has been greatly extended by the introduction of sailing vessels under 
the management and direction of white men. We may consider first the operations 
of land killing and their effect on the herd. 
A. LAND KILLING—ITS METHODS. 
ANIMALS KILLED. 
Land killing on the Pribilof Islands has since about the year 1835 been confined 
strictly to the removal of a definite number of young males, chiefly 3-year-olds, 
with occasional “long” 2-year-olds and “short” 4-year-olds, which approximate the 
3-year-olds in size. At times the average size of seals killed has varied from this 
standard, leaning to the larger seals and again to the smaller animals, as the demands 
of the market or the condition of the hauling grounds have dictated. 
KILLING SEASON. 
The regular killing season on the islands lies between the 1st of June and the 1st 
of August. During the period from about the middle of August until about the 
middle of October the skins of the seals are not in prime condition, being stagy, as 
it is called, owing to the shedding of the hair. After the middle of October killing is 
resumed to a limited extent to furnish meat for the natives. In like manner the seals 
are killed for food as soon as they arrive in the spring, usually early in May. These 
food skins are accepted as part of the quota and are included with those taken in the 
regular killing season. 
THE DRIVING OF THE SEALS. 
The young bachelor seals, which are the class taken for their skins, haul out on 
the sand beaches or in the rear of the rookeries and at a distance from them. In the 
