290 
BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OP FISHERIES 
the years 1880 to 1889 averaging 44,363 per year. The insight into the fur-seal 
industry thus gained during its most prosperous period was of great value later. 
With the year 1892 began the terrible onslaught of pelagic sealers on the seal herd 
of the Commander Islands, which resulted in an average loss of about lOOyOOO 
seals a year in excess of the normal mortality of the herd. 
In 1895 the United States Fish Commission, wishing to obtain reliable informa- 
tion as to the status of the fur-seal industry in the North Pacific, commissioned 
Dr. F. W. True and the writer to proceed to the seal islands. Doctor True to report 
on the Pribilof Islands while to this author was allotted the investigation of the 
Commander Islands. The stay on the Commander Islands lasted from July 3 to 
September IG, during which time all the rookeries were thoroughly investigated, 
photographed, and mapped. As a result of this trip there was published in the 
bulletin of the United States Fish Commission (Vol. XVI, 1896) the writer's report 
on The Russian Fur-Sea,l Islands ^ (148 pp. and 66 pis., including maps of both 
islands and. every rookery, showing the distribution of the seals in 1883 and 1895). 
As a member of the Commission on Fur-Seal Investigations appointed by 
President Cleveland in 1890 to act in conjunction with commissioners appointed 
by Great Britain and Canada with special reference to the effect of the regulations 
teade by the Paris Arbitration Tribunal for the protection of the seal herd, the writer 
'again visited the Pribilof Islands, spending 10 days there. The Commander Islands 
\vere next visited, and the rookeries on both islands were inspected and photographed 
between July 30 and August 8, after which the writer proceeded to the Kuril 
Islands belonging to Japan. On August 29 and 31 the then Russian seal rookery, 
■Robben Island, in the Okhotsk Sea off the east coast of Sakhalin, was inspected, 
photographed, and mapped. During the summer of 1896, therefore, practically all 
of the fur-seal rdokeries of the North Pacific, Bering Sea, and Okhotsk Se^ were 
^ijtispected. 
In 1897 the writer again inspected the Russian islands. . The entire sealing 
season, from July 7 to September 2, was spent on Copper Island and Bering Island 
stud3'ing the various problems with special reference to the effect of pelagic sealing 
■on the greatl}^ reduced Russian herd. 
■ • During five sealing seasons on the Commander Islands it has thus been possible 
for the writer to gain an intimate knowledge of the fur-seal ciuestion, not only 
during the period of greatest expansion but also during the period of greatest decline 
due to the nefarious practice of pelagic slaughter by foreign sealers. , 
The final report on this work was published in volume 4 of the largle Report 
'of th(j Piu--Seal Investigations, 1896-97, as Part IV of The Fur Seals and Fur-Seal 
Islands of the North Pacific by David Starr Jordan and associates, under the title 
The Asiatic Fur-Seal Islands and Fur-Seal Industry (1898, 384 pp., 113 pis., iilclud- 
itig diagrams and maps) . In tliis report, which will be referred to hereafter ftlereily 
ks The Asiatic Fur-Seal Islands, a detailed description is given of the islands, th^e 
flora and famia, the inhabitants, the fur-seal industry and its history on the Russian 
islands' from their first discovery in 1741 to and including 1897, accompanied by 
photographs and ma])s of all the rookeries showing the distribution of the seals in 
1882-^3 and 1895-1897. The report also includes a full account of thfe Japanese 
fur-seal islands and pelagic sealing on the Japanese and Russian coasts. 
1 This report was reprinted in Alaska Industries, House Document No. 92, part 4, 1898, pp. 613-754, pis. 1-67. 
