24 
FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA, 1909. 
conditions the catch of any year would be quickly responsive to a 
lessening or enlarging of the number of births two years previously. 
With the creation, however, of a reserve of bachelors, the lessee 
would be able to expect a portion of its catch from this reserve 
instead of from the increment from the breeding herd alone. As it 
would be justified in counting upon a considerable number of 3-year- 
old skins from the reserve, a correspondingly smaller number of 
2-year-olds from the increment of young seals would be needed to 
complete its quota. 
This indicates that the maintenance of a bachelor reserve would 
obscure to a degree the effect on bachelors of a reduction of the 
breeding herd. Without this reserve the shrinkage would be quickly 
felt; with it, however, the loss in new seals would be met by the 
bachelor reserve and the catch maintained. This is one of the 
reasons why the land catches on the Pribilof Islands have been main- 
tained at a relatively stable figure since 1904, and the reduction in 
the number of young seals, resulting from a depletion of the breeding 
cows, not immediately indicated by a simultaneous reduction of the 
bachelor catch. 
REDUCTION OF BACHELOR RESERVE. 
It must not be overlooked that the bachelor reserve represented 
by the number of small rejections from the killing field has been 
almost eliminated. Beginning in 1904 with over 10,000 rejections 
of these males, the reserve has fallen steadily to 4,000 rejections in 
1909, including those among the marked bachelors. Its steady 
diminution during this period apparently indicates that to maintain 
the quota at a stable figure this reserve had to be drawn upon more 
heavily every succeeding year; or conversely, the rejections each 
year became fewer in order to secure the quota. It certainly is true 
that a steady but gradual reduction occurred in the number of 
bachelors rejected, and had such reduction not been made the quota 
would have suffered. 
The reduction of this reserve will make it a matter of difficulty to 
secure a quota in 1910 approaching in size that of 1909. With 
fewer of the older animals to draw upon, dependence will be had 
mainly upon the young or 2-year-olds. With the chance that there 
will be fewer of these than in 1909, it would appear problematical 
whether enough can be found to equal or approach the catch of 1909. 
RATIO OF BACHELORS TO WHOLE HERD. 
In 1897 the investigation made by the commission of which 
Dr. David Starr Jordan was chief disclosed a ratio of bachelors to the 
whole herd of 1 to 20. That ratio was used by him in his criticisms 
of the accuracy of H. W. Elliott’s censuses based on acreage measure- 
