Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gur 



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Forest And Stream Fabllshlng Co> 

 No. 318 Bhoadwat. New Yobk Citt. 



THE FATE OF THE FUR SEALS. 



THERE appears to be no longer any doubt that the fur 

 seals of our Alaska waters are on the point of ex- 

 tinction. It has been feared for some years that the 

 destructive and wasteful methods of the pelagic sealers 

 would bring about this result, but it appears that the 

 threatened extermination of the seals is not in fact due 

 to that cause, but to wasteful killing on the islands and 

 by the lessees. 



For some time it has been suspected that the fur seals 

 were seriously decreasing in numbers, but the little 

 islands to which they resort to breed are so far away 

 that it is most difficult to secure exact information on 

 this and other points connected with them. Eecently, 

 however, we have the reports of Mr. Goff and Mr. Elliott, 

 and this week we print a memorandum from the last 

 named gentleman, which tells its own story. His report 

 is of especial value on account of his familiarity with the 

 seal islands in years gone by, for this knowledge enables 

 him to compare the present condition of seal life there 

 with what it was soon after the Russians ceded Alaska to 

 the United States. 



Mr. EUiott's statements are so clear and so full of force 

 that they need no explanation nor elaboration. The facts 

 are evident to every intelligent person. While there are 

 now on the islands large numbers of female seals — though 

 but two-fifths as many as there were sixteen years ago — 

 there are very few breeding males, only about ten per 

 cent, of the number found in 1874,- and there are practi- 

 cally no young males growing up to take the place of 

 these breeders. In fact, there are only about 80,000 

 young males on the island, and these, even if allowed to 

 live, would not reach the breeding age for three or four 

 years. But these islands are leased to a corporation, and 

 this corporation, if it kills any seals at all, must take 

 them from these young males. If killing on these islands 

 is permitted this year and next year the result cannot be 

 doubtful. The males will all be killed off and the fur 

 seals will disappear from our Northwest coast, just as they 

 have disappeared from so many islands and shores in 

 the Southern seas, just as the buffalo have vanished from 

 our Western prairies. 



For twenty years after the cession of Alaska to the 

 United States the revenue derived from the seal islands 

 paid more than 4 per cent, on the purchase price for the 

 territory. Congress, realizing that this was a profitable 

 investment, legislated for its protection, and there is no 

 reason why its value and its returns might not have re- 

 mained the same for all time. But the Government has 

 not protected itself against its lessees, pelagic sealing has 

 reduced the numbers of the seals, and wholesale killing 

 on the islands has nearly destroyed one sex, so that now 

 we have approached the end. 



Congress tm-ned over the care and protection of the 

 seal fisheries to the Treasury Depai-tment, and if that in- 

 dustry is to be extinguished by om- own cijiizens, as is 

 ijow threatened, it is the Treasury Department which 



NEW YORK, MAY 7, 1891. 



must bear the responsibility of the loss to the nation. 

 Even now it is not too late to arrest the work of slaughter. 



All commercial killing of seals on the islands of St. 

 Paul and St. George should be forbidden for five years 

 — and not only forbidden, but actually prevented by a 

 force of Government employees sufiieient to see that this 

 prohibition is obeyed. In this way the young seals now 

 growing up would reach maturity and become the sires 

 of the seals of the future. 



The Department of State is also interested in this mat- 

 ter, since it has for several years been endeavoring by 

 negotiation with Great Britain to put an end to pelagic 

 sealing. Some agreement should be at once entered into 

 with that power and with Russia, providing that there 

 shall be no killing of seals in Bering Sea at any time. 

 This would protect the female seals while on their breed- 

 ing grounds, and at a time when the death of the mother 

 means also the death of the pup. There should be an ab- 

 solute close time for five years. In no other way can 

 the seals be preserved. 



There are those who object to such action as this, but 

 they are only a few. The corporation which has leased 

 the islands wants —naturally enough — to kill all the seals 

 there, sell their skins and pocket the profits. A few nar- 

 row-minded people complain that if killing on the islands 

 shall cease, the Government revenue will cease too. Very 

 true, but wliich is better; that this revenue should cease 

 for a few years and then begin again and continue for- 

 ever, or that it should continue for a few years, con- 

 stantly growing smaller and then should cease forever? 



Besides the loss of revenue to the United States which 

 will result from the extermination of the seals, there is 

 to be considered the population of the seal islands. 

 This population now earns a living by working at the 

 seal fishery, and if this fishery ceases to exist, the occupa- 

 tion of the natives will be gone, and they must either 

 starve or be supported by the United States. 



Granting the accuracy of Mr. Elliott's observations — 

 and this we must do, since no one knows half so much 

 of the subject as he — the case is a most urgent one, and 

 calls for immediate action by the authorities at Washing- 

 ton. The season for killing the seals at the Pribylov 

 Islands will soon open, and if the killing shall be allowed 

 to begin, the young male seals will soon be all destroyed. 



Politics have entered so largely into this question of 

 the Alaska seal fisheries that the important question at 

 issue, the preservation of seal life, is almost lost sight of, 

 and it is difiicult to learn what the authorities really in- 

 tend. At first we are told that killing is to be permitted 

 this year- and then that a close time is to be ordered for a 

 term of years. It is earnestly to be hoped that the last 

 named course may be pursued. 



FISHING DAYS. 

 npHE rivers roaring between their brimming banks; the 

 brooks babbling over their pebbled beds, and cross- 

 stream logs that will be bridges for the fox in mid-summer; 

 the freed waters of lakes and ponds, dashing in slow beat 

 of waves or quicker pulse of ripples against their shores, 

 in voices monotonous but never tiresome, now call all 

 who delight in the craft to go a-fishing. 



With the sap in the aged tree, the blood quickens in 

 the oldest angler's veins whether he be of the anointed 

 who fish by the book or of the common sort who practice 

 the methods of the forgotten inventors of the art. 



The first are busy with rods and reels that are a pleas- 

 ure to the eye and touch, with fiy- books whose leaves 

 are as bright wich color as painted pictures, the others, 

 rumaging corner-cupboards for mislaid lines, searching 

 the sheds for favorite poles of ash, ironwood, tamarack 

 or cedar, or perhaps the woods for one just budding on 

 its sapling stump. 



Each enjoys as much as the other the pleasant labor of 

 preparation and the anticipation of sport, though perhaps 

 that of the scientific angler is more esthetic enjoyment, 

 as his outfitting is the daintier and more artistic. But to 

 each comes the recollection of past happy days spent on 

 lake, river and brook, memories touched with a sense of 

 loss, of days that can never come again, of comrades gone 

 forever from earthly companionship. 



And who shall say that the plebeian angler does not 

 enter upon the untangling of his cotton lines, the trim- 

 ming of his new cut pole and the digging of his worms, 

 with as much zest as his brother of the finer cast, on the 

 testing and mending of lancewood or split bamboo rod, 

 the overhauling of silken Hnes and leaders and the assort- 

 ing of flies, 



VOL. XXXVI.-No. 16. 

 No. 318 Bhoadwat, New Yobk. 



Considering the younger generation of anglers, one 

 finds more enthusiasm among those who talk learnedly 

 of all the niceties of the art. They; scorn all fish not 

 acknowledged as game. They plan more, though they 

 may accomplish less than the common sort to whom all 

 of fishing tackle is a pole, a line and a hook. To them 

 fishing is but fishing, and fish are only fish, and they will 

 go for one or the other when the signs are right and the 

 day propitious. 



Descending to the least and latest generation of ang- 

 lers, we see the conditions reversed. The youth born to 

 rod and reel and fly is not so enthusiastic in his devotion 

 to the sport as the boy whose birth-right is only the pole 

 that craftsman never fashioned, the kinky lines of the 

 country store and hooks known by no maker's name. For 

 it is not in the nature of a boy to hold to any nicety in 

 sport of any sort, and this one, being herein unrestrained, 

 enters upon the art called gentle with all the wild free- 

 dom of a young savage or a half -grown mink. 



For him it is almost as good as going fishing, to unearth 

 and gather in an old teapot the great worms, every one 

 of which is to his sanguine vision the promise of a fish. 

 What completeness of happiness for him to be allowed to 

 go fishing with his father or grandfather or the acknowl- 

 edged great fisherman of the neighborhood, a good-for- 

 nothing ne'er-do-well, but wise in all the ways of fish and 

 their taking, and very careful of and kind to little boys. 



The high-hole never cackled so merrily, nor meadow 

 lark sang sweeter, nor grass sprang greener, nor water 

 shone brighter than to the boy when he goes a-fishing 

 thus accompanied. To him is welcome everything that 

 comes from the waters, be it trout, bass, perch, bullhead 

 or sunfish, and he hath pride even in the abominable but 

 toothsome eel and the uneatable bowfin. 



Well, remembering that we were once boys and are yet 

 anglers, though we seldom go a-fishing, we wish, in these 

 days of the new springtide, to all the craft, whether they 

 be of high or low degree, bent and cramped with the 

 winter of age or fiushed with the spring of life, pleasant 

 and peaceful days of honest sport by all watersides, and 

 full creels and strings and wythes. 



In these soft evenings, when the air is full of the unde- 

 finable odor of the warming earth and of the incessant 

 rejoicing of innumerable members of the many families 

 of batrachians, one may see silently moving lights prowl- 

 ing along the low shores of shallow waters, now hidden 

 by trunks of great trees that are knee-deep in the still 

 water, now emerging" illuminating bolls and branches 

 and flashing their glimmering glades far across the rip- 

 ples of wake and light breeze. 



If one were near enough he could see the boat of the 

 sj)earers, its bow and the intent figure of the spearman 

 aglow in the light of the jack that flares a backward 

 flame with its steady progress, and drops a slow shower 

 of sparks; the stern and the paddler dimly seen in the 

 verge of the gloom. 



These may be honest men engaged in no illegal affair; 

 they exercise skill of a certain sort; they are enthusiastic 

 in the pursuit of their pastime, which is as fair as jack- 

 ing deer, a practice upheld by many in high places; yet 

 these who by somewhat similar methods take fish for 

 sport and food are not accounted honest fishermen, but 

 arrant poachers. If jacking deer is right, how can jack- 

 ing fish be wrong; or if jacking fish be wrong, how can 

 jacking deer be right? Verily, there are nice distinctions 

 in the ethics of sport. 



The Death of Dr. Edward Matnard at the ripe age 

 of 78 years has brought to its close a long career dis- 

 tinguished for usefulness and crowned with abundant 

 honor. Although he was best known to the sportsmen 

 of America as the inventor of the arm which beara his 

 name, Dr, Maynard's work in this field formed but a por- 

 tion of his mechanical and scientific achievements. We 

 print to-day an appreciative sketch of his life from the 

 pen of Mr. H. W. S. Cleveland. The portrait is by the 

 loving hand of his son, Geo, W. Maynard. 



We have received for the Helen Keller Fimd, through 

 Mr. W. Wade, from Mrs. Wm. Bakewell, Parnassus, Pa., 

 $5; and from Mrs, John Kerr, Parnassus, $1. 



Any subscriber may supply a friend with a copy of the 

 current issue of the Forest akd Stream by sending us 

 on a postal card the name of that friend. 



The New York Copification Bili, did not pass. 



