(Hulten 1940:308; Hanna 1960:14). Stejneger stopped briefly 

 at St. Paul Island in July 1922, en route to the Asiatic fur seal 

 islands (Stejneger 1923:34). Jordan (1922, vol. 1, p. 550) 

 wrote, "A Japanese group had also been appointed, but its 

 members were unable to reach Bering Sea; they did, however, 

 join us at Washington in December" 1897. 



On 7 November 1896, Jordan and associates issued a prelim- 

 inary report which was published the same year (U.S. Treasury 

 1896). It offered the first map (U.S. Treasury 1896, folding 

 map at end, untitled) purporting to show the migration routes 

 of American and Asian seal populations. It emphasized (U.S. 

 Treasury 1896:36) the "need of scientific supervision of the 

 breeding herds" and called for "improvement and extension 

 of the rookeries" by landscaping tools and machines. 



On 1 November 1897, Jordan and associates issued a second 

 preliminary report (U.S. Treasury 1898). It was a forerunner 

 of the four-volume final report of 1898-99, which we will de- 

 scribe later. 



In his brief report of studies during the summer of 1896, 

 D'Arcy Thompson concluded that "the alarming statements 

 to which utterance has been given in recent years, the accounts 

 of the herd's immense decrease and the prophecies of its ap- 

 proaching extinction, are overdrawn and untenable" (Thomp- 

 son 1897:35). He believed, however, that the population was in 

 precarious balance and was definitely not increasing. 



Barrett-Hamilton (1897) visited Robben, Bering, Medny, St. 

 Paul, and St. George Islands in one summer; something of a 

 record! 



His Canadian colleague, Macoun, blamed U.S. management 

 of the resource for the decline. "Long before pelagic sealing 

 could have had any effect upon the condition of the seal rook- 

 eries, a great decrease was noted in the number of seals of both 

 sexes on the islands. This decrease can be attributed to no 

 other cause than the excessive killing of male seals, the annual 

 quota of 100,000 leaving an insufficient number to mature for 

 procreative purposes" (Macoun 1897-98:74). 



At the conclusion of the 1896-97 field investigation, repre- 

 sentatives of both nations signed, on 16 November 1897, a 

 carefully worded joint statement. They agreed that the annual 

 yield of Pribilof sealskins had fallen to one-third or one- fifth 

 of its former level, that the mortality of pups on land was 

 about 20%, that the pelagic catch contained a high percentage 

 of females, and that "the take of females in recent years has 

 been. . .far in excess of the natural increment" (Jordan and 

 Clark 1898a:243). They concluded that the fur seal as a species 

 was not threatened with extinction, though as a natural re- 

 source it was yielding an "inconsiderable" return, both to the 

 lessees of the islands and to the owners of the pelagic fleet. 

 Their estimate of 20% mortality for pups apparently included 

 9% for pups dying before 10 August of "natural" causes and 

 11% for those dying later of starvation after the death of their 

 mothers at sea. 



In the following month, on 29 December 1897, the United 

 States "passed a law [30 Stat. 226 (1897)] making it unlawful 

 for any of its citizens to engage in pelagic sealing at any time or 

 in any waters, thus putting squarely upon the British and such 



7 Hanna, G. D. 1960. [Transcript of a tape recording, 18 June 1960, on St. 

 Paul Island, entitled "A comparison of conditions on St. Paul Island during 

 1913-1920 with the present."] 24 p. Northwest and Alaska Fish. Cent., Natl. 

 Mar. Mammal Lab., Natl. Mar. Fish. Serv., NOAA, 7600 Sand Point Way NE., 

 Seattle, WA 98 115. 



other nations as might engage in pelagic sealing the entire re- 

 sponsibility for such results as might follow from killing seals 

 on the open sea" (Evermann 1919:269). The text of the act was 

 given by Jordan and Clark (1898a:246). 



The scope, the personnel, and the itinerary of the investiga- 

 tion of 1896-97 were summarized by Jordan and Clark 

 (1898a: 17-22). Among the results were the following important 

 contributions to fur seal biology. 



1) The best "census" of seals up to then was prepared in 

 1897, and a preliminary census for 1896 was refined. The esti- 

 mates were based on complete counts of harem bulls and par- 

 tial counts of harem females and pups. (This technique had 

 been developed by Murray in 1891, 1894, and 1895.) The total 

 estimate of Pribilof seals "present at one time or another, sea- 

 son of 1897" was 402,850 (Jordan and Clark 1898a: 100). "The 

 method of enumeration thus established in 1896 has been con- 

 tinued each season since with slight variation" (Clark 1912: 

 895). Thompson (1897:19) gave useful summary, by rookery 

 and by class of seal, of the five "censuses" of True and Town- 

 send, Murray, Crowley, and Jordan, in 1895 and 1896. 



2) A critical review of existing rookery maps was undertaken 

 by Moser (1899:321) during 10 d in July 1896. Maps had been 

 made by Elliott, Townsend, Stanley-Brown, and "Drake" 

 (presumably F. J. Drake, the commander of the Albatross in 

 1895). Moser concluded that "it is impracticable to correct the 

 present rookery maps" (Moser 1899:324). He proposed that a 

 survey party of about seven men be assigned for a full year to 

 make new ones. Numbers were painted "in 1897 on rocks by 

 the surveying party of the United States Coast and Geodetic 

 Survey, to mark the approximate boundaries of the various 

 rookeries on the islands" (Lembkey 1908:32). We believe that 

 these are the numbers now in use. (Townsend had made 

 crosses, not numbers, on rocks in 1893.) 



The Coast and Geodetic Survey sent a party under Will 

 Ward Duffield to the islands in 1897. They painted certain 

 rocks along the rookeries and prepared 15 new charts (nos. 

 3214 to 3228) of the rookeries and the islands, with modern 

 spelling. The charts were published in May to July 1898. The 

 Marine Mammal Biological Laboratory had in 1965 only a 

 partial set of charts, though a complete set of photo negatives 

 of the charts. 



3) A detailed record of all seals killed for all purposes, by 

 rookery and by day, from 1870 to 1897, was compiled by Mur- 

 ray (1898a:364-407). The total kill for the 28 yr was 1,977,337; 

 the mean annual kill was 70,619. 



4) Anatomical studies of the fur seal were carried out by spe- 

 cialists attached to, or cooperating with, the Jordan Commis- 

 sion: Lucas (1899a:9-l 1, 2 pis.) on dentition; Snodgrass (1899: 

 11-21, 2 pis.) on alimentary, circulatory, and genitourinary or- 

 gans; and Fish (1899:21-41, 3 pis.) on the brain. 



5) The studies by Lucas (1899b:43-57, 1 pi.) on breeding be- 

 havior and physiology of the seal were especially important. 

 Dissections by Townsend in 1892 aboard pelagic sealing vessels 

 had brought to light information on fundamental female anat- 

 omy. Later studies at sea, combined with Lucas' work on land 

 in 1896 and 1897, brought evidence on the estrus, the fact of 

 annual rather than biennial breeding, and the scarcity of bar- 

 ren individuals. The percentage of females in the pelagic kills 

 of 1894 to 1896 was shown to be about 80% (Jordan and Clark 

 1898a: 185). Because marked animals of known age were not 

 available to them, biologists up to 1914 believed that "the fe- 

 male is sexually mature at the age of 2" (Lucas 1899b:48). 



14 



