ALLEGED CHANGES OF HABITS. 107 



ttis incident chiefly to show how little dependence can be i)laced upon the obser- 

 vations made by the natives, and more particularly upon their deductions, or the 

 explanations they see fit to make. 



From the above it may be .regarded as well established that during the past 

 season an unusual mortality took place among the seal pups on Bering Island, and that 

 they died of starvation. There seems but one reasonable explanation of this phenom- 

 enon, viz, that they starved because their mothers were killed, and as they were not 

 killed on the island there seems to be no sther logical conclusion but to assume that 

 they were killed by the pelagic sealers. 



I am well aware that the above statements have been made light of in certain 

 quarters, and it has even been said that I have exaggerated the facts. To this I can 

 only answer that nobody else but myself investigated the case in 189 >; that I have 

 the captain, doctor, and other officers of the British man of war as witnesses to the 

 accuracy of my statements. Fortunately, the Commander Island rookeries were 

 again investigated by competent scientists, whose observations fully corroborate the 

 correctness of mine, and who also encountered the same curious reticence and apathy 

 of the Russian authorities relative to the whole question of the mortality of the pups. 

 This will be more fully dealt with in the chapter relating to the condition of the 

 Commander Island rookeries in 1896. 



Mr. Venning's experience ou north rookery on August 28, 1893, also points in 

 the same direction. He examined about one-third of the rookery, and "counted 285 

 dead pups, 150 of which had certainly died this year." These 150 were undoubtedly 

 pups which had died recently, probably of starvation, while the other 135, which he 

 mistakenly thinks were left from the previous year, had died earlier in the season, 

 probably very shortly after their birth. (Venning, Eep. 1893, p. 11.) 



ALLEGED CHANGES OF HABITS. 



During the recent discussions relative to the habits of the fur seals and to the 

 seal fisheries, it has been asserted by various persons that the habits of the seals have 

 undergone, or are undergoing, material changes. Curiously enough, such changes 

 have been alleged by both sides; but while one side attributes certain alleged changes 

 to the disturbance of the seals ou the rookei-ies, the other side insists that certain 

 other alleged changes are due to the interference of the pelagic sealers. 



It must not be forgotten that the habits of the fur seals at the present time are 

 the result of a long evolution, which dates back, possibly, millions of years. The 

 habits of the North Pacific and South Pacific seals in most essential points are alike, 

 and as these seals belong to very distinct species it is practically certain that these 

 habits were formed before these species had emerged from the common ancestral 

 stock. This separation probably dates back to the time when the North Pacific seals 

 became geographically shut off from intermingling with the southern forms. From 

 that early period the differentiation of the local habits of the former must have gone 

 on for ages, until now there is inborn in every seal an instinct which is the inherited 

 accumulation of the doings of tens of thousands of generations repeated every year. 



It must, moreover, be borne in mind that the fur seals are gregarious animals. 

 Such animals always act in flocks ; their habits are the habits of the flock. Individual 

 deviation from the habits inborn does not materially affect the habits of the whole 

 community. To effect a change in the habits of such a species it would be necessary 



