REPLY TO MR. BARRETT-HAMILTON. 181 



over-killing, whicli means the killing of so many males that there are not enough left 

 for impregnation purposes, and if he can not do that it is utterly senseless to recom- 

 niend "another period of total cessation of killing on the island." 



Nothing could better illustrate the fallacy of this alleged "over- killing" theory. 

 The Eobben Island herd has decreased because raiders and others have killed females 

 as well as males during the summer, while during the winter the pelagic sealers off 

 Japau have done likewise. On Bering Island the herd has also decreased because 

 the females have beeu killed, in this case, however, by pelagic sealing both in summer 

 and winter. 



Fluctuations in the land catch. — The fluctuations noted in the land catch from year 

 to year are due to many causes — as, for instance, less abundance of killables near the 

 islands, unfavorable weather for the catch, epidemic diseases among the natives, as 

 has happened at least one year, anticipation of the catch during a previous year, etc. 

 The increase or decrease of the catch therefore does not denote a corresponding 

 decrease of the breeding herd, unless the change is notable and gradual (eliminating 

 the accidental fluctuations) over a long period. 



Tiie essential part of the seal question has been, and is, the question concerning 

 the decrease of the breeding seals and the causes which brought it about. I did and 

 do still maintain that such a decrease has taken place and, moreover, that /or this the~ 

 •pelagic sealing is to blame and the pelagic sealing alone. IS'othing that Mr. Barrett- 

 Hamilton has brought forward has shaken this conclusion, and tbe utter groundlessness 

 of the theory of over-killing is excuse enough for my having ignored discussing it in 

 the original edition of the "Eussian Fur Seal Islands." 



Fallacy of the principles upon which the theory of over-lcilling is based. — The 

 fundamental, and consequently fatal, fault of Barrett-Hamilton's theory of over-killing 

 of males on land being even a contributing factor to the decrease of the breeding- herd, 

 consists in the fallacy of two of his essential premises, viz, first, the proper number 

 of bulls necessary to the impregnation of the females, which he places at 30 (p. 43) ; 

 and, second, the notion that all male seals go ashore on the rookeries every year. 



The first point has already been disposed of above (pp. 88 and 168); The other 

 may need to be elaborated still further. 



It is curious that Barrett-Hamilton, who has devoted so much space in his report 

 to what I have said concerning the Commander Islands seals and rookeries, passes by in 

 profound silence an entire chapter which I headed '^Do all bachelors haul outV (p. 67). 

 True, I did not point out the moral of the negative answer, but if I did not it was 

 because I thought it obvious without. As a matter of fact, when I cast about for a 

 cause that would explain the comparative scarceness of bulls on Bering Island I at 

 once lit upon "over-killing," but it did not take me long to abandon it when I contem- 

 plated how unfounded it is to suppose that all, or nearly all, bachelors haul out every 



year. 



That Barrett Hamilton believes that practically every individual bachelor, includ- 

 ing the yearlings, get out upon the beaches every year is plain from numerous passages 

 in his report, and his entire discussion of the absence of the yearlings in 1895 would 

 be meaningless were he of a different opinion. 



He visited the islands in 1896 and again in 1897, and I will modify the question 

 which I put in a general way on page 68 of my book so as to cover these years, as 



