but it is probable they were not overlooked by the enterprising sealers who, during the next fifty years, explored every nook and corner of the southern seas in search of prey. Scores of voyages are simply credited, in Mr. A. Howard Clarke's statistical history of fur sealing (already cited), however, simply to the "Southern Seas." M. Charles Vélain, who visited these islands in 1874, with the French Transit of Venus Expedition, reports that they were at that date still visited by considerable herds of fur-seals. (Cf. J. W. Clark, Proc. Zoöl. Soc. London, 1875, p. 653.)

WEST COAST OF SOUTH AFRICA AND ADJACENT ISLANDS.

South Africa.

Ichaboe Island.

Mercury Island.

Bird Island.

As early as the year 1790, sealing voyages were made to the west coast of South Africa, and a greater or less number of fur-seals appear to have been taken here at intervals from that time till the present. In October and November, 1828, Capt. Benjamin Morrell cruised along the west coast from the Cape of Good Hope to Walwich Bay, in about 23° S., searching for seals. From his narrative it appears that he first met with them at a small island in latitude 31° 32' S., about half a mile off the coast. (Morrell, Voyages.) At Ichaboe Island, 8 leagues north of Angra Pequena, he found great numbers of fur-seals, and "took about a thousand of their skins in a few days." He speaks of the island as the resort of "multitudes of fur-seals." (Ibid, p. 294.) Having taken "as many Fur-Seal skins here as was practicable," he passed on a few leagues farther to Mercury Island (lat. 25° 42′ S., long. 14° 58′ E.), where he took about a thousand Fur-Seal skins. At Bird Island, about 1 degree farther north, he obtained "the skins of 1,400 fur-seal at one time, although the landing was very bad.", (Ibid., pp. 295, 296.) "As the season (November) was not sufficiently advanced for the seals to come up in their usual numbers on the islands and rocks" south of Walwich Bay, he made an excursion into the interior and again visited these islands about the end of December. He then took a few seals from Bird Island, and made an attack upon those on Mercury Island. "The rush of my little party," he says, "was simultaneous; every nerve and muscle was exerted, and we had reached the opposite side of the rookery, killing several seal on our way, when we found that the other party, under command of Mr. Burton, had been stopped in mid-course' about the center of the rookery by the immense number of seal that began to pour down the steep rocks and precipices like an irresistible torrent, bearing down their assailants, and taking several of the men nearly into the sea with them. Several hundred fur-seal were left lifeless on the shore and rocks." Owing to a fatal accident to one of his most valued men, due to a heavy breaker engulfing three of the party, the island, with its wealth of seals, was immediately abandoned and the vessel returned directly to the Cape of Good Hope, having taken, in all, about 4,000 seals. (Ibid., pp. 304–306.)

In 1830 Capt. Gurdon L. Allyn, with the sealing schooner Spark, of New London, Conn., visited Ichaboe Island, but arrived too late in the season (January 14) to secure many fur-seals. He found the carcasses of about a thousand from which the skins had been removed by sealers who had preceded him the same season. He says, speaking of the coast generally: "The coast was well sealed, and we could only glean a few from the roughest rocks. We found a few Seals at each landing, and by the 6th of September had taken

600 Seal skins." He secured small catches at intervals during the following months, and started for home on March 31, 1831, with a cargo of 3,700 skins. In 1834 he made another voyage with two vessels to the same coast, visiting Ichaboe, Mercury, and Bird Islands. The first season's work amounted to only about 800 skins, the seals being scarce and shy. Respecting the next season (1835) he says: "The Seals having been harassed so much, the prospect was slim for the next season, but by putting men on the small rocks to shoot them, and by great diligence, we managed to secure about 1,000 skins to both vessels, which was a slim season's work." (Capt. G. L. Allyn. The Old Sailor's Story, as quoted by Mr. C. Howard Clark.)

Cape of Good Hope.

Sealing appears to have been abandoned for some years following on the African coast, owing to the low price of seal-furs and the scarcity of the seals. It has, however, since been resumed, and placed under restrictions by the Government of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, the seal islands being rented to a sealing company under certain stipulated conditions, and poaching rigorously prohibited. The yield is small but steady, averaging about 5,000 skins per annum. (Affidavit of Emil Teichmann, of the London firm of furriers, C. M. Lampson & Co.)

Government regu

iations.

་

PART III.

THE ALASKAN FUR-SEAL AND PELAGIC SEALING.

By J. A. ALLEN.

By request of the Secretary of State of the United States I have examined the report of the Commissioners appointed by the President in 1891 to investigate the subject of the fur-seal industry as conducted at the Pribilof Islands, and the influence of pelagic seal hunting in its relation thereto; also the numerous affidavits relating to the same subjects obtained by the Department of State from former United States Treasury agents in charge of the sealing industry at the said islands; from agents of the Alaskan Commercial, the North American Commercial, and the Russian Sealskin Companies; from officers of the United States Revenue Marine; from masters of sealing schooners and seal hunters engaged in pelagic sealing, and from the leading dealers and experts in the fur-seal trade, as well as the history of many now extinct fur-seal fisheries. I have also examined the reports, statistics, affidavits, and arguments contained in the Blue Books published by command of Her Britannic Majesty numbered C.-6131 (1890), C.-6368 (1891), C.-6633 (1892), C.-6634 (1892), and C.-6635 (1892), and the Annual Reports of the Department of Fisheries of the Dominion of Canada for the years 1885 to 1891, inclusive; in view of all which evidence and testimonies I submit the following statement in relation to the principal points of the subject:

Migration of seals.

1. The true home of the fur-seals of the eastern waters of the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea is the Pribilof group of Pribilof Islands. islands in Bering Sea. It is to these islands that the Seals repair annually to breed, and there is no evidence that they breed elsewhere than on these islands. It is evident, from what we know of seal life elsewhere, that were the climate sufficiently mild in winter they would undoubtedly pass the whole year at these islands. Owing, however, to the inclemency of the winter months the fur-seals are forced to migrate southward in search of food and a milder climate. Some of the males, however, especially the bachelors, are known to remain about the islands, particularly in mild winters, nearly the whole year. Generally the greater part move southward and eastward to some point south of the Aleutian chain. They leave the Pribilof Islands much later in autumn than the females and young seals, and return thither much earlier in spring. The males in returning northward in spring evidently pass, in the main, much further from the coast than the females, and their northward migration is more rapid and direct.

The females on leaving the islands in the autumn move gradually southward as far at least as the coast of California, where they were formerly often seen in large numbers in January and February. Later in the season they proceed gradually northward, passing generally quite

near the coast, the route varying in different years, being evidently governed by the runs of fish and the position of the various fishing banks. They move leisurely as compared with the males, which have preceded them, the females being heavy with young, and pausing often to feed and sleep, but landing nowhere till they reach their sole and only breed ing grounds on the Pribilof Islands.

The Pribilof herd has thus had its own exclusive home, with fixed and definite lines of migration along the western coast of North America.

Commander Islands.

2. The Commander Islands herd is evidently distinct and separate from the Pribilof Islands herd. Its home is the Commander group of islands on the western side of Bering Sea, and its line of migration is westward and southward along the Asiatic coast. To suppose that the two herds mingle, and that the same animal may at one time be a member of one herd and at another time of the other, is contrary to what is known of the habits of migrating animals in general. Besides, while the two herds are classified by naturalists as belonging to one and the same species, namely, the Callorhinus ursinus, they yet present slight physical differences, as in the shape of the body and in the character of the hair and fur, as regards both color and texture, sufficient not only to enable experts in the fur trade to recognize to which herd a given skin belongs, but sufficient to affect its commercial value. As yet, expert naturalists have been unable to make a direct comparison of the two animals, but the differences alleged by furriers as distinguishing the representatives of the two herds point to their being separable as subspecies, in other words, as well-marked geographic phases, and thus necessarily distinct in habitat and migration.

California.

3. Since fur-seal breeding rookeries are reported to have formerly existed on some of the small islands off southern Cal Islands off southern ifornia, it has been assumed that they were a portion of the Pribilof herd, which sometimes remain south to breed. Such an assumption is entirely opposed to what is known of the habits and distribution of marine life and to well-grounded principles of geographic distribution, namely, that a fur-seal breeding on an arctic island, which it annually travels thousands of miles to reach, would also choose for a breeding station an island in subtropical latitudes. Fortunately the rebuttal of this assumption does not depend upon the generalizations of the naturalist, since specimens have been recently obtained from Guadalupe Island which show Guadalupe Island. that, while a fur-seal formerly occurred there, and is still found there in small numbers, it is not only not the Pribilof species, but a seal belonging to a distinct genus, hitherto only known as an inhabitant of the southern hemisphere. This Guadalupe Island fur-seal, of which I have had the opportunity of examining, in conjunction with Dr. C. Hart Merriam, a series of four skulls, proves to be a species of the genus Arctocephalus, and is apparently closely allied to the furseal of the Galapagos Islands, the previously most northern known limit of the genus.

Habits of Alaskan Fur Seals.

4. There is not only no evidence to show that the fur-seal of the Pribilof Islands ever lands upon any part of the shore or on any part of the islands of the western coast of North America south of the Pribilof Islands, but there is also no evidence that it ever brings forth its young at sea, either in the water or on floating beds of kelp. Such a method of breeding is obviously a physical impossibility, when the character of the animal, and particularly the condition of the young at birth, is duly considered. The

young fur-seal is exclusively a land animal for the first six or eight weeks of its life and does not voluntarily visit the water till about the end of this period. If placed in the water during the first few weeks of its existence it will quickly drown if left to itself. When first born it is encumbered for a greater or less length of time with the placental envelopes, which alone would insure its speedy death by drowning should parturition occur in the water. The young fur-seal avoids and is afraid of the sea until, at the age of six to eight weeks, it is conducted to the water and taught to swim by its mother. Of this fact the evidence is unanimous and overwhelming. The claim sometimes made that parturition may occur in the open sea or on beds of floating kelp rests on no sound evidence, and is doubtless due to misapprehension and careless observation.

5. The breeding female not only resorts to the land to give birth to her young, but remains there until she has been again

impregnated by the male, which occurs ordinarily with- Mode of propagation. in a few days after parturition. Copulation in the water is exceptional, if ever occurring, and is probably impossible, owing to the immense disparity in size between the sexes, and the protracted and violent nature of the act. The presumption that it may occur in the water is entirely opposed to the well-known sexual economy of the species. The males are not only polygamous, but they take their positions on the rookeries long before the females arrive at the islands, fighting not only for the possession of their chosen stations, but for the females as they land, which they gather about them in as large numbers as possible, jealously guarding them not only from their rivals, but to prevent their escaping from their respective harems. If parturition and copulation could occur in the sea the exercise of any such tyrannical jurisdiction of the males over the females would be impossible and the seraglio system so well established not only in the case of this species, but in all its allies, would not be the one striking feature in the sexual economy of the whole eared-seal family, wherever its representatives are found.

6. Only males of 6 years old and upwards have the courage and physical endurance to render them successful contestants for positions on the breeding rookeries, and only a portion of these are able to establish harems and serve the females. It is a well established fact that a bull of this class is able to serve from forty to sixty females, the number he actually serves varying more or less according to his success in gathering the females to form his harem. As the number of males and females annually born is about equal, there is thus an immense superfluity of male life, so far as the unlimited perpetuation of the species is concerned. 7. The history of the Pribilof fur-seal herd shows that for a period of about 15 years it was possible to kill for commercial purposes 100,000 young male seals annually with not only no recognizable decrease or deterioration of the herd, but appar ently a decided increase up to about the year 1880. The following three or four years is commonly recognized as a period of stagnation, during which time there was no very material increase or decrease. Since 1884, however, there has been a rapid decline not only in the number of killable males, but in the size of the herd as a whole.

Size of Pribilof herd.

8. This remarkable and unexpected decline originated through no change in the management of the fur-seal herd at the Pribilof Islands. During the last two or three years, lagic sealing. however, and in consequence of the decline from the

Decline due to pe

former status of the herd it has been necessary to lower the age of seals