CHAPTER X. 
ALLEGED POSSIBLE CHANGE OF HABITS. 
MIGRATION TO COMMANDER ISLANDS. 
It may be worth while here to note certain supposed possible changes of habits 
on the part of the fur seals as a result of the interference of man. Much has been 
said at the Paris Tribunal and elsewhere regarding the danger of driving the seals 
from their haunts on the Pribilof Islands to seek other shores. There is no such 
possibility. 
It has been a tradition in the history of the fur seals that the Commander Islands 
were originally occupied by seals which had abandoned the Pribilof Islands. This 
tradition has not the slighest foundation. Doubtless all came centuries ago from one 
parent stock, but as the two herds exist to-day they are distinct races or species and 
do not intermingle in any way. Notwithstanding this, it has within recent times been 
thought possible that under exceptional circumstances we might expect an exodus of 
seals from the Pribilof Islands to the Russian islands. Even so late as the present 
year it has been asserted that Pribilof seals were taken on the Asiatic side, the 
alleged cause of their going there being the fact that they had been branded on their 
native rookeries. These stories are all very absurd and rest upon no basis of fact or 
knowledge, but, in view of the persistency with which they have been urged, it will 
not be out of place to consider the habits of the animals in the light of such possible 
results. 
THE FIXED HABITS OF THE SEALS. 
The habits of the fur seal are strongly fixed. From the natural ruthless 
destruction of all seals in which the geographical instinct or the instincts of feeding 
and reproduction are defective results the extreme perfection of the few instincts 
which the animal possesses. The life processes of the fur seal are as perfect as 
clockwork, but its grade of intelligence is low. Its range of choice in action is very 
slight. It is a wonderful automaton, and the stress of the migrations will always 
keep it so. 
THE SEAL’S LOW INTELLIGENCE. 
By iatellect or intelligence in this sense is meant the power to choose among 
different possible courses of action. External influences and internal impulses 
produce certain impressions on the nervous system of the animal. By the automatic 
instinct the response which follows is directly related to the cause, and there is no 
choice among responses. So much influence, so much rebound. By the operations 
of instinct each individual in given conditions will act just as any other individual 
will. Intellect, however, implies individuality. One animal will choose to do this, 
another that, adapting action to certain needs and circumstances. A fur seal will do 
what its ancestors have had to do to perfection. If he is forced to do anything else 
he is dazed and stupid. 
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