180 THE ASIATIC FDR-SEAL ISLANDS. 



to do with the decrease on Copper Island. Of course, he could not avoid the logic of the 

 following question : Seeing that the decrease has been even larger on Copper Island, 

 and seeing that the damage has been even worse, how is it possible to blame "over- 

 killing" for the decline of Bering Island, if it can not also be shown to be responsible 

 on Copper Island? And so he lit upon a passage in my book (p. 117) in which I say 

 that in 1890 "some active work" had to be done on Copper Island because bachelors 

 were sometchat scarce, though I added that the falling off could not have been exces- 

 sive, as the quantity of skins that year on Copper Island was the largest ever shipped 

 from that island. What actually took place was that the company— the outgoing 

 one— anticipated some of next year's catch, to the detriment of the incoming company, 

 no doubt, but to no detriment whatever of the breeding herd. 



One must, indeed, be infatuated with the theory of "over-killing" to even suggest 

 that it could be practiced on Copper Island to such an extent as to cripple the breeding 

 herd and thus contribute to the decadence of the rookeries. The very fact, therefore, 

 that the Copper Island rookeries have been the greatest sufferers up to 1895 is corrob- 

 orative evidence of the highest importance in disproving the theory with regard to the 

 Bering Island rookeries. 



Over-Mlling of bachelors on Eobben Js?aM(i .^—Barrett-Hamilton's zeal to show 

 "over-killing" of bachelors to be one of the principal causes of the decline of the seals 

 has led him into a curiously self contradictory argument concerning the status of the 

 seal rookery on Eobben Island. 



On page 6 he devotes a whole chapter to a suspected case of a thousand females 

 on Eobben Island in 1891, " which had either not been impregnated in the previous 

 year or were barren." ' Finding the latter alternative improbable he accepts the 

 former. He continues: "If that were true in 1891 (as the rate of killing since that 

 date, except in the following year, when no seals were killed, has been pretty high, 

 reaching 1,500, 1,000, and 1,300 in 1893, 1894, and 1895, respectively) it would well 

 account for the present small size of the herd, and it is evident that another period of 

 total cessation of Mlling on the island is badly needed^ He goes so far as to find 

 corroboration of this state of affairs in the statement by Captain Grcenberg, that in 

 1895 the weight of the skins taken was good and yearlings were scarce, concluding 

 that it " probably means that few pups were born in the previous year." It will be 

 noted that the conditions thus reported by Captain G-rcenberg were identical with the 

 status on North Eookery, Bering Island, during the same year, and that Barrett- 

 Hamilton's explanation is the same, viz, non-birth of pups the previous year on 

 account of lack of impregnation of the females. But — and this is the fatal point— on 

 page 4 of his report he states that it is difficult to cut off and drive all the bachelors 

 on Eobben Island, and that "it is probably owing to this circumstance that the number 

 of bulls here is as great as it is" (viz, about 30 bulls to 450 females on shore, liberally 

 estimated by Barrett-Hamilton himself, though further on he insinuates that there 

 was probably a greater disproportion between the sexes, p. 3).^ Now, with a propor- 

 tion of one bull to 15 cows on shore or, say, as a maximum, one bull to 30 cows 

 altogether, Barrett- Hamilton can not possibly lay any failure of impregnation of the 

 females to the lack of bulls, and if he can not do that he can not trace the decrease to 



'But wliy not virgin f — L. S. 



2 When Prof. d'Arcy Thompson visited Eobben Island at the height of the season, 1897, he counted 

 78 bulls. Evidently the "over-killing"-of-baohelors theory will not do at all for this rookery. 



