88 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
IV.-THE RUSSIAN SEALING INDUSTRY. 
HISTORICAL. 
Even before the diseovery of the Commander Islands, in 1741, the fur-seals were 
known to and bunted by the natives of Kamcbatka. Krasbeuinnilcof (Hist. Kanits- 
elmtka, 1764, p. 124 seq.) refers to this catch as follows: 
The sea cats are caught in the spring and in the month of Septemhey’, about the river Slmpanova; 
at which times they go from the Kurilslcoy island to the American [i. e., Commander Islands] coast: 
hut the most are catched about the cajie of Kronotzkoy, as between this and the cape Sliiqnytekoij the 
sea is generally calm, and affords them properer j)laces to retire to. Almost all the females that are 
caught in the spring are pregnant; and such as are near their time of bringing forth their young 
.are immediately opened, and the young taken out. and skinned. None of them are to be seen from 
the beginning of .Time to the end of August, when they return from the south [!] with their young. 
* * * They seldom come ashore about Kayyitschatka; so that the inhabitants chace them in boats, 
and throw darts or harpoons at them, which stick in their body ; to this harpoon is fixed one end of a 
roj>e, and the other is in the vessel ; and by this rope they draw them towards the boat ; but here they 
are to be p.articularly cautious whenever they chace one, if he comes near, not to suffer him to fasten 
up>on the side of the boat with his fore paws, and overturn it; to prevent which some of the fishermen 
stand ready with .axes to cut off his paws. 
In later times there has been no such regular catch of fur-seals on the Kamchat- 
kan coast, for the reason that now the whole region from the Bay of Avatcha to the 
mouth of the river Kamchatka is entirely uninhabited. 
Following the discovery of the Commander Islands nirmerous vessels were fitted 
out to hunt fur-bearing animals on these islands and, later, to lay in provisions of 
sea-cow meat for use in their protracted journeys to the Aleutian Islands farther east 
(see Stejneger, American Naturalist, 1887, pp. 1049-1052). It does not seem, however, 
as if the fur-seal skins were in demand. The skins were not particularly valuable; 
the sea-otters and blue foxes were still numerous; the men had more pressing and 
profitable things to attend to; the drying of the seal skins was both laborious and 
lirecarious in the damii climate; in brief, it did not pay to bother with the fur-seals at 
that period. Later, however, all this was changed. The more costly furs were getting 
scarce and the enterprising Bussian merchants, now followfing upon the heels of the 
promyshleuiks, or hunters, had found a profitable market in China for large quantities 
of the cheaper fur-seal. Foremost among these merchants was Grigori Ivanovich 
Shelikof, whose name, from 1770 on to his death in 1795, was connected with the fur 
trade and colonization of that part of the world. He seems to have been the first to 
pay special attention to the skins of the fur-seal, and was for a long time the only 
one who gathered them in large quantities. 
The discovery of the Pribylof Islands, with their countless numbers of fur-seals, 
did not seem to have made any difference in this. On the contrary, the increased 
supply seems to have created an increased demand. Under the pressure of a fierce 
competition a senseless slaughter of the fur-seals was carried on until the whole 
business was threatened with destruction, from which it was alone rescued by the 
formation of a dominant company, which soon swallowed up the smaller concerns and 
obtained a monopoly of the entire trade of the region. 
