that the official reports of Goff and Elliott in 1890, describing 

 an alarming decline in the herd, were still unpublished in mid- 

 summer 1S92. They concluded: "A critical investigation of the 

 published matter, together with the evidence personally ob- 

 tained from many sources and an examination of the local de- 

 tails of the rookeries and hauling grounds on the Pribyloff 

 Islands, leads us to believe that there has been a nearly contin- 

 uous deterioration in the condition of the rookeries and de- 

 crease in the number of seals frequenting the islands from the 

 time at which these passed under the control of the United 

 States" (Baden-Powell and Dawson 1893:23). 



Baden-Powell and Dawson (1893:46-50) recommended a 

 general tightening up of methods of killing seals on land and 

 sea, reduction in the total killed, and concurrent action by the 

 four nations of the North Pacific. 



In 1892, Barton Warren Evermann "as a special commis- 

 sioner under the State Department, made extensive studies re- 

 garding pelagic sealing in the North Pacific. In the course of 

 his investigations he visited the Pribilof Islands" (Osgood et 

 al. 1915:23). From 1903 to 1910 he was in charge of the Divi- 

 sion of Scientific Inquiry of the Bureau of Fisheries, and when 

 the Alaska Fisheries Service was created on 4 March 1911 he 

 became its first chief. He became director of the California 

 Academy of Sciences in 1914 (Evermann 1912:5; Hanna 

 1932a:317, 1932b:162). Evermann (1919, 1922) maintained for 

 many years an interest in fur seal conservation. 



A completely new chart no. 8990 of the Pribilofs was issued 

 in April 1892. 



In 1893 the Commissioner of Fisheries was "authorized and 

 required to investigate. . .and when so directed to report an- 

 nually. . .the condition of seal life upon the rookeries of the 

 Pribilof Islands" (U.S. Congress, Senate 1896a, part 2, p. 3). 

 Though the Treasury Department continued to manage the fur 

 seal industry', the Fish Commission now became responsible 

 for research. C. H. Townsend directed the research from 1893 

 to 1895. He had been on the islands in 1885, 1891, and 1892 as 

 naturalist of the Albatross. 



In 1893 he marked with white paint certain camera stations 

 on both islands. According to Jordan (U.S. Treasury 1896:21) 

 he painted "a white cross on a rock at the head of each of the 

 large masses of breeding seals as located at the height of the 

 season [mid-July]." In 1893 he made "46 photographic 

 views"; in 1894, 38 photographs; and in 1895, 42 photographs 

 (Townsend 1896, part 2, p. 3-5, 10, 27). The photographs 

 taken in 1895 by Townsend and his assistant N. B. Miller were 

 later reproduced (Townsend 1896, part 2-Atlas). They are a 

 valuable record of seal distribution on the breeding grounds at 

 a low point in herd size. 



Some of Townsend' s investigations were made on the is- 

 lands and some among the pelagic fleet. He reported the con- 

 tents of 32 seal stomachs collected at sea in 1894 by A. B. Alex- 

 ander (Townsend 1896:22). The contents were squid, pollock 

 or cod, and salmon (?). In 1895 he examined 73 stomachs con- 

 taining food and reported the contents as squid, pollock, cod, 

 salmon, and "very small fishes" (Townsend 1896:42). 



In 1894, Joseph Murray, special agent of the Treasury De- 

 partment, again visited the Pribilofs to compare the numbers 

 of seals killed "with what they were every year since [he] first 

 saw them in 1889" (Murray 1898b:3). He observed large num- 

 bers of idle bulls and starving pups, the result of pelagic sealing 

 upon females. He estimated that "no matter how many seals 

 were there in 1891 , not to exceed one-half of the number were 



to be found in 1894" (Murray 1896:59). He returned to the is- 

 lands in 1895. 



In 1895, females were first dissected for study of reproduc- 

 tive condition as evidenced by appearance of the mammary 

 gland, uterus, and ovaries (Townsend 1896:41). Townsend ex- 

 amined 106 females and concluded that "female fur seals are 

 first impregnated at the age of 2 years, and bear their first 

 young at the age of 3. It is also apparent that nursing females 

 are already pregnant when they begin feeding at sea" (Town- 

 send 1896:42). (We now know that the female is first impreg- 

 nated at age 3 yr or older.) Townsend's tally of 78 nursing fe- 

 males in 80 females "3 years of age or older," taken between 

 1 1 and 21 August, suggests a high pregnancy rate, about what 

 one would expect to find in waters near the islands in midsum- 

 mer (Townsend 1896:45). 



In 1895 Townsend plotted in color, by months, the location 

 of pelagic catches in the North Pacific and Bering Sea (Town- 

 send 1896, opp. p. 96). He prepared a similar, though more 

 elaborate, chart covering the catches from 1883 to 1897 which 

 was published at the conclusion of the Jordan investigations 

 (Townsend 1899, opp. p. 234). 



In 1895 Townsend cooperated with F. W. True, "curator of 

 mammals, United States National Museum," who spent July 

 and August on the islands (True 1896; Osgood et al. 1915:23). 

 True evidently planned to give a full report of the natural history 

 of the fur seal but did not do so. He collected 1 5 seal specimens 

 for the Museum. He later (True 1899) published a general ac- 

 count of the mammals of the Pribilofs excluding the fur seal. 



In 1895, four independent "censuses" of fur seals were 

 made. The methods and results were analyzed by Jordan and 

 Clark (1898a:85-88) and Clark (1912:895). The number of 

 breeding females in the Pribilof herd was estimated by Town- 

 send (1896:34) at 65,239, by True (1896:107) at 70,423, by 

 Murray (1896:373) at 200,000, and by Crowley (1896:35) at 

 99,936. Murray introduced the important technique of count- 

 ing harem bulls (5,000) and multiplying them by the average 

 harem (40 breeding females). His method was the best that had 

 been developed. Osgood et al. (1915:34) wrote that the method 

 of the average harem was used "during pelagic sealing or in all 

 years previous to 1912" to estimate the number of pups born. 

 Murray wrote in 1894 that "I have for six years paid particular 

 attention to the formation of the harems or families, and I find 

 that from July 10 to 20 the rookeries are fullest and at their 

 best" (Murray 1896:49). The practice of beginning the annual 

 bull count on 15 July, a practice which became routine in 1904, 

 may have originated in the observations of Murray. 



The Paris regulations of 1893 were ineffective. The reported 

 pelagic kill for 1894 reached an all-time high of 61,838 seals 

 while the kill on land was only 15,033. "The United States, 

 therefore, requested Great Britain to consider the revision of 

 the regulations. This request was declined, and in 1896 this 

 country accepted the proposal of Great Britain that the two 

 countries institute independent scientific investigations of the 

 entire matter" (Osgood et al. 1915:22). The second joint com- 

 mission visited the Pribilofs in the summers of 1896 and 1897. 

 Its members were, for the United States: David Starr Jordan, 

 Jefferson F. Moser, Leonhard Stejneger, Frederic A. Lucas, 

 Charles Haskins Townsend, George Archibald Clark, and 

 Joseph Murray. Those representing Great Britain were D'Arcy 

 W. Thompson, Gerald E. H. Barrett-Hamilton, James M. 

 Macoun, and Andrew Halkett. (Macoun returned in 1914 as 

 an old man, with the Osgood, Preble, and Parker commission) 



13 



