48 
ORDERS OF MAMMALS— SEALS AND SEA-LIONS 
will exterminate any species of animal, no matter 
how numerous. 
The accompanying map graphically illustrates 
the remarkable sea-going habits of the Pribilof 
Fur Seal herd after the close of the breeding 
season, and during the intensely cold and fear- 
fully windy winters that annually render life on 
the Seal islands a serious task. 
The combined political and commercial im- 
portance of the Fur Seal demands a brief summary 
of the most important facts of its rise to favor, 
its decline, and finally its fall. The end, how- 
ever, is not yet ; but it looms very near. 
REVIEW OF FUR SEAL HISTORY. 
For the past seventeen years, the Fur Seal 
has been to the United States, England and 
Canada a source of well-nigh constant anxiety, 
contention, and at times irritation. Inasmuch 
as the fate of that animal is still pending, it seems 
desirable to set forth the most important facts 
in its case, in chronological order. The history 
of the Fur Seal since our acquisition of Alaska 
is divided into two periods, one of revenue, and 
one of contention. 
The Period of Revenue. 
1867 . — When Alaska became a United States 
possession, by purchase from Russia at a cost of 
$7,200,000, the fur of the Fur Seal was almost 
unknown to fashion, and outside of Russia was 
neither used nor particularly desired. 
1870 . — The United States leased to the Alaska 
Commercial Company, for twenty years, the ex- 
clusive right to kill each year on the Pribilof 
Islands, 100,000 young male Fur Seals, receiving 
therefor, annually, the sum of $317,500. 
1872 . — The Alaska Commercial Company 
began to expend $100,000 in cash, chiefly in 
London, in making the wearing of sealskin 
fashionable. This effort was entirely suc- 
cessful. 
1873 . — After a careful survey of the 
Pribilof Islands, and an elaborate com- 
putation of the number of Fur Seals then 
inhabiting them, Mr. Henry W. Elliott, a 
special agent of the Treasury Department, 
announced the total number of Seals to 
be 3,193,420. He says: “No language 
can express adequately your sensations 
when you first stroll over the outskirts of 
any one of those great breeding grounds 
of the Fur Seal on St. Paul’s Island. . . . 
Indeed, while I pause to think of this sub- 
ject, I am fairly rendered dumb by the 
vivid spectacle which rises promptly to 
my view. It is a vast camp of parading 
squadrons which file and deploy over slopes 
from the summit of a lofty hill a mile down 
to where it ends on the south shore. Upon 
that area before my eyes, this day and date 
of which I have spoken, were the forms of not 
less than three-fourths of a million seals, mov- 
ing in one solid mass from sleep to frolicsome 
gambols, backward, forward, over, around . . . 
until the whole mind is so confused and charmed 
by the vastness of mighty hosts that it refuses to 
analyze any further.” (“Our Arctic Province,” 
p. 313.) 
Some observers estimated the number of Seals 
at a figure higher than Mr. Elliott’s. Others have 
recently contended that it must have been less. 
1880 . — “Pelagic sealing” means the killing 
of Fur Seals, male or female, in the open sea, by 
means of guns or spears. It is an exceedingly 
wasteful and destructive method, but it had 
been going on in a quiet way for many years. 
On land, only male Seals are killed. In the sea, 
about four females were killed to every male 
taken, and the pups on shore were left to starve. 
In 1880, the total number of Seals taken at sea 
in Bering Sea was only 8,418; but from that 
time on, the killing increased rapidly, and be- 
came fearfully destructive. 
180° 165° 15W 136° 120 J 
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ANNUAL WINTER MIGRATION OF THE FUR SEAL HERD. 
