ports of seal hides and oil for Newfoundland reached a total value of $5,208,579. The Newfoundland sealing is essentially a British industry, the major part of the fleet hailing from the ports of Saint Johns and Conception Bay, the English vessels from Dundee and Peterhead. The principal species taken in this catch is the saddleback or harp seal (Phoca grænlandica), which constitutes also the bulk of the catch in the Jan Mayen and Greenland sealing.

Next in importance comes the sealing in the vicinity of Jan Mayen Island. This is confined to an area of about 400 miles diameter about the island. The seals arrive in this region somewhat later and some British vessels, after completing the Newfoundland season, go on to Jan Mayen. This sealing is also participated in by German and Norwegian vessels, the former sailing from Hamburg, the latter from Tönberg and Tromsö. The area covered is so limited that this sealing is very destructive. In 1876 it became necessary to establish a closed season for the Jan Mayen sealing, which was accomplished by an agreement among the nations concerned by which sealing in the area between lat. 67° and 75° N. and long. 5° E. and 17° W. should not begin before 3 April. The records for the Jan Mayen sealing extend back to 1720. The catch by a fleet of 19 vessels from Hamburg in 1760 is said to have been 44,000. For 1790 the catch was 45,000; for 1850, 48,000. We learn that in 1868 a fleet of 15 Norwegian vessels, carrying 600 to 700 men, took part in this sealing, the catch for five years preceding this date being approximately 65,000 a year. The British fleet has been smaller, ranging, in the period 1865 to 1871, from 4 to 12 vessels, taking a catch of from 16,000 to 90,000. The best estimates available for the total catch of the Jan Mayen sealing for this period would seem to be about 200,000 seals a year. Since 1880, despite the regulations, this sealing has greatly declined. The statistics for the German and Norwegian vessels are not available, but those for the British fleet are given each year by Thomas Southwell in the Zoologist' (London). From this source we learn that the catch for 1881 was 27,894; for 1885, 26,448; for 1887, 1,100; for 1889, 15,079, and for 1891, 1,560. Since 1895 the Jan Mayen sealing has been abandoned by the British fleet.

On the west coast of Greenland a considerable catch of seals is made by the natives. The flesh of the animals is sought for food and the skins for clothing, and they form the chief resources of the inhabitants of the region. The product of this sealing formerly, according to Dr. Rink, in his account of Greenland, averaged about 89,000 seals each year. In recent years it is said to have fallen off to about one-half, probably from the same cause that has affected the Jan Mayen sealing.

At Nova Zembla and in the White and Caspian seas are important sealing grounds worked by the Russians. Professor Schultz in his account of the seal and other fisheries of these waters speaks of the White Sea sealing as covering an area of 230 miles and engaging 2,000 hunters. The methods of sealing and the species sought are the same as in the North Atlantic. The catch has been estimated at from 65,000 to 75,000 a year. The Caspian Sea sealing is more

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important, the annual catch for five years prior to 1882, as given by Professor Schultz, was 130,000. Statistics regarding the results of sealing in the White and Caspian seas in recent years are not available.

The methods employed in taking the seals vary with the different conditions under which the animals are found. Along shores of Newfoundland nets and sealing frames are used. A common form of net is one making with the shore an oblong enclosure, the ends capable of being lowered as the animals approach and raised after they are within. They are then frightened until they have hopelessly entangled themselves in the meshes of the suspended net. Two men manage such a net, which may be as much as 150 fathoms in length and in a single such net 1,800 seals are said to have been taken in one season. The natives of Greenland use the net also, but employ chiefly the harpoon or spear with wooden shaft and detachable head, the latter secured to the boat by means of a cord by which the captured animal is drawn up to the hunter and dispatched with the club or knife. Stationary nets are also used in connection with the rocks where seals are accustomed to haul out to rest and also about their breathing holes in the ice. Deadfalls, sealing hooks and other devices are used as circumstances warrant. But the really important method of capture is that used upon the ice fields where the seals are found congregated in immense herds. When a vessel has sighted seals its hunters are put ashore on the ice. They round up the animals, cutting them off from the open water and then club them over the head. When the seals are all killed the hunters remove the skins, with the adhering layer of blubber, and drag them back to be stored in the ship. This process is repeated layer of blubber, and drag them back to be found, or a cargo is obtained. At port the fat is separated from the skin and the latter preserved by salting. The fat is rendered into oil. In former times this was accomplished by throwing it into huge vats to melt by its own weight under the action of the sun and weather. In recent years this method has been replaced by the more rapid one of rendering by steam. The oil thus obtained is used as a lubricant and luminant and in the manufactures. The hides are made into leather and used for a variety of purposes, among them the covering of trunks and knapsacks.

The vessels used in the sealing industry were originally small sailing schooners. Steam vessels began to be used about 1866, and have gradually superseded the sailing vessels. Of the fleet of 107 vessels of 1873, one-fifth are said to have been steamers. At the present time steam vessels are employed almost exclusively in the Nedfoundland and Jan Mayen sealing. The ships must be staunchly built with iron-shod prow for breaking through the ice and with strength to withstand the pressure when caught in the shifting ice. The business is a hazardous one, vessels not infrequently being wrecked by storms or ground to pieces between the icebergs. Vessels sometimes fail to come up with seals and so return empty. But the catches are in the main good and at times exceptionally so. Catches of 30,000 to 40,000 seals are not infrequent for single vessels, and each animal is worth from one to

three dollars, a rich booty for a season of from six weeks to two months. In the case of steam vessels the men of the crew share onethird of the catch among them, two-thirds going to the owners of the vessel. The catch is divided equally between crew and owners in the case of sailing vessels.

It is not easy to bring together in any complete way the statistics of the hair-seal industry. For the period 1881 to 1901, Mr. Southwell, in his annual notes in the 'Zoologist' on the 'Seal and Whale Fishery,' gives rather complete data for the British fleet taking part in the Newfoundland and Jan Mayen sealing. His figures do not, however, include the shore hunting and the seals taken by sailing vessels. The following table is compiled from his annual notes:

Of the value of the total product of the industry various estimates are available. The catch of 1857 of 500,000 seals is valued at $2,125,000. This sum was divided among 375 vessels and 13,600 men. The catch of 1871 of 486,262 seals is said to have yielded 6,943 tons of oil valued at $972,000, the skins themselves being valued at $486,262, making a total of $1,458,262. These figures related to the Newfoundland catch. For the years 1895-1901, Professor Southwell gives the following estimates for the catches of these years as shown in the preceding table:

The number of seals taken in 1916 is given as 241,302, and for 1917 only 196,228.

When the hair-seal industry was in its prime its total catch from the various grounds numbered about 1,000,000 seals annually, at a value of approximately $3,000,000. The catch has fallen off in recent years, perhaps to one-half, but the industry is still a valuable one and worthy of such measures as may be necessary to preserve and perpetuate the race of animals upon which it depends. The fate of this industry in the North Atlantic Ocean would seem to be equally important with that of the furseal industry in the North Pacific Ocean. The danger which seems to threaten in one case is much the same as in the other - indiscriminate and wasteful killing.

Fur Seals. The fur seals or sea bears constitute two groups or genera, Arctocephalus (A. townsendi, Guadalupe Island; A. philippi, Galapagos Islands; A. australis, southern coasts of South America and neighboring islands; A. forsteri, coasts of New Zealand and southwestern Australia; A. delalandi, islands off South Africa; A. gazella, Kerguelen and Prince Edward Island), once numerous and widely distributed among the pelagic islands of the southern hemisphere but now practically extinct through indiscriminate slaughter in the greater part of its habitat, remnants of importance only existing on Lobos Island, in the mouth of the River Plata in Uruguay, and on the islands of Cape Horn, receiving in both places government protection; and Otoës (Callorhinus), O. ursinus, Commander Islands; O. alascanus, Pribilof Islands, in Bering Sea, and O. curilensis, Kurile Islands and Robben Island, in the Sea of Okhotsk, limited to the waters of the North Pacific Ocean now the sole variety of any considerable commercial importance.

The typical male fur seal or "bull" attains maturity at about the age of seven years, weighs from 400 to 500 pounds, is about six feet in length and has a girth of four and one-half feet. His color is blackish or dark brown, with yellowish-white water hairs, especially long on the back of the neck, forming the so-called "wig" or mane. The fore-limbs or flippers, with broad membrane connecting and extending_beyond the toes, are used in swimming. The animal stands erect and runs or lopes along the ground when on land. The adult female or "cow" is smaller, averaging about 80 pounds in weight, with length and girth in proportion. Her fur is of varying shades of brown. She bears her first young or "pup" at the age of three years. The breeding grounds are bowlderstrewn beaches or rocky-hill slopes near the shore, and on these the gregarious instinct of