ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
sels have largely withdrawn from the unequal 
contest with Japanese vessels, and the Govern- 
ment land catch of surplus, non-breeding males, 
has dwindled to a paltry fourteen thousand in 
1909. Twenty-five years ago the island catch 
of surplus males was 100,000 a year without 
detriment to breeding stock. Pelagic sealing 
has caused us losses, in one way or another, of 
at least twenty millions of dollars. 
As the supply of first-class sealskins is now 
so small, the very business of manufacturing 
sealskin garments is likely to die out, and the 
expert workmen engaged in it be scattered, to 
the great detriment of the fur trade. If sealskin 
garments should pass entirely out of fashion, it 
would take many years to train new workmen 
and to re-introduce the fashion. 
If the cessation of pelagic sealing can be 
brought about without delay, it will be possible 
to preserve the very special art of sealskin man- 
ufacture, as well as the seal race itself. 
It is the small catch of prime skins of sur- 
plus male seals from the Pribilof and Com- 
mander Islands that is keeping the industry 
alive, the pelagic catch being inferior in many 
ways. 
The fur-seal is a highly polygamous animal, 
which habit naturally results in a large surplus 
of males. It is from the “bachelor” class of 
surplus males, that the catches on the Pribilof 
and Commander Islands have always been made 
by the United States and Russian governments, 
respectively. The utilization of the surplus 
males involves no more injury to the separate 
and distinct class of breeding seals than the 
utilization of the surplus male animals would on 
a cattle ranch, which is none at all. 
With sealing vessels actively destroying fe- 
male seals, the surplus male life would, if not 
removed and utilized at maturity, fill up the 
breeding grounds with an unnatural preponder- 
ance of mature males, destroying both females 
and young by their furious fighting. This is a 
zoological fact. There could of course be no 
injury to the herd itself by a cessation of land 
killing, provided there be a cessation of pelagic 
killing of females at the same time. 
The habits of the fur-seal have been studied 
exhaustively for years by many of the foremost 
zoologists of the country, whose views are unan- 
imous respecting the surplus male life of the 
breeding grounds. 
The fur-seal herds can be saved only by the 
immediate and complete suppression of pelagic 
sealing. No restrictions upon the killing of 
surplus males on land can be of any benefit to 
the herds. On the other hand, there would be 
a loss of revenue to the Government, a loss of 
BULLETIN. 943 
prime skins now serving to keep alive the fur 
dressing industry, a loss of occupation for hun- 
dreds of resident natives on the islands, and a 
larger catch of damaged pelts by pelagic sealers, 
whose suicidal industry is on its last legs. 
The whole matter of the fur-seal industry, in- 
cluding the administration of the seal rookeries 
on the Pribilof Islands, as well as the workings 
of the pestiferous pelagic sealing business, is re- 
ceiving the most careful consideration at the 
hands of the officers of the Bureau of Fisheries 
and the advisory Board of the Fur Seal Service. 
It is in the hands of men who understand the 
matter in all its details, who have had personal 
experience with it both afloat and ashore—on 
the vessels and on the seal islands—and who are 
moreover familiar with the international aspects 
of the subject. 
At a meeting in Washington on November 
23, 1909, various recommendations were made, 
on each of which there was unanimous action. 
While these recommendations included some 
changes in the administration of the islands, 
there was no uncertainty about the attitude of 
the meeting on the subject of pelagic sealing, 
which is alone responsible for the diminution of 
the seal herd. 
The pelagic sealing question is unfortunately 
one of jurisdiction over the high seas, and re- 
quires international action. Any nation could 
engage in it. Urgent recommendations for its 
suppression have been made to the Department 
of State, and everything depends upon the suc- 
cess of the international negotiations now being 
conducted. 
With Great Britain and the other governments 
concerned, the Bering Sea controversy is no 
longer a matter of maintaining pelagic sealing, 
the fatal destructiveness of which they all rec- 
ognize, but one of rights on the high seas. 
Whenever we recognize those rights in full, and 
announce our readiness to pay for their with- 
drawal, the sealing fleets will be called off. If 
we had done this twenty years ago, we would 
have saved money and long since restored our 
seal herd to its normal size. It is up to the 
State Department. 
AN AQUARIUM IN INDIA. 
“Nature,” a weekly journal of science pub- 
lished in London, announces that a marine 
aquarium has just been established at Madras, 
India. It is described as being of small size 
and stocked with marine species from the ad- 
jacent coast. It is equipped with glass-fronted 
tanks, a reservoir, filter, aeration plant, elevated 
cistern and one large open pool. 
