REPLY OF DR. ALPHONSE MILNE EDWARDS, LE DIRECTEUR DU MUSÉUM D'HISTOIRE NATURELLE, PARIS, FRANCE. PARIS, FRANCE, le 20 avril, 1892. MONSIEUR, J'ai lu avec un grand intérêt la lettre que vous m'avez adressée relativement aux phoques à fourrure de la mer de Berhing, et je pense qu'il y aurait un réel avantage à ce que des mesures internationales fussent concertées afin d'assurer une protection efficace à ces précieux animaux. Aujourd'hui, les facilités de transport dont disposent les pêcheurs sont si grandes, les procédés de destruction dont ils usent sont si perfectionnés que les espèces animales, objet de leur convoitise, ne peuvent leur échapper. Nous savons que nos oiseaux migrateurs sont, pendant leurs voyages, en but à une véritable guerre d'extermination et une commission ornithologique internationale a déja examiné, non saus utilité, toutes les questions qui se rattachent à leur conservation. N'y aurait il pas lieu de mettre les phoques à fourrure sous la sauvegarde de la marine des nations civilisées? Ce qui s'est passé dans les mers australes peut nous servir d'avertissement. Il y a moins d'un siècle, ces amphibies y vivaient en troupes innombrables. En 1808, lorsque Fanning visita les îles de la Georgie du Sud, un navire quittait ces parages, emportant 14,000 peaux de phoques appartenant à l'espèce Arctocephalus australis. Il s'en procure, luimême, 57,000 et il évalue à 112,000 le nombre de ces animaux tués pendant les quelques semaines que les marins y passèrent cette année-là. En 1822, Weddell visite ces îles et il évalue à 1,200,000 le nombre des peaux obtenues dans cette localité. La même année, 320,000 phoques à fourrure furent tués aux Shetland Australes. Les conséquences inéluctables de cette tuerie furent une diminution rapide du nombre de ces animaux. Aussi, malgré les mesures de protection prises, depuis quelques années, par le Gouverneur des Malouines, ces phoques sont encore très rares et les naturalistes de l'expédition française de la "Romanche" ont séjourné près d'une année à la Terre de Feu et aux Malouines sans pouvoir en capturer un seul exemplaire. C'est une source de richesse qui se trouve tarie. Il en sera bientôt ainsi du Callorhinus ursinus dans l'Océan Pacifique Nord et il est temps d'assurer à ces animaux une sécurité qui leur permette une reproduction régulière. J'ai suivi avec beaucoup d'attention les enquêtes qui avaient été faites par le Gouvernement des États-Unis à ce sujet. Les rapports des commissions envoyées aux Iles Pribilou ont fait connaître aux naturalistes un très grand nombre de faits d'un haut intérêt scientifique et ont demontré que l'on pouvait, sans inconvénients, pratiquer des coupes réglées dans ces troupes de phoques où les males sont en excès. On a appliqué là, de la manière la plus heureuse, ce que l'on pourrait appeler l'impôt sur les célibataires, et on aurait assuré la conservation indéfinie de l'espèce, si les émigrants, à leur retour dans les stations de reproduction, n'avaient été assaillis et pourchassés de toute façon. Il y a donc lieu de tirer parti des renseignements très complets que l'on possède sur les conditions d'existence des phoques à fourrure afin d'en empêcher l'anéantissement et une commission internationale peut, seule, indiquer les règles dont pêcheurs ne devraient pas se départir. Veuillez agréer, Monsieur, l'expression de mes sentiments très distingués. Le directeur du Muséum d'histoire naturelle, M. le docteur MERRIAM. [Translation.] A. MILNE EDWARDS. PARIS, April 20, 1892. SIR: I have read with great interest the letter you addressed me with reference to the fur seals of Bering Sea, and I think it would be of real advantage to have concerted international measures so as to insure an effective protection to those valuable animals. To-day the means of transportation at the disposal of the fishermen are so great, the processes of destruction which they employ are so improved, that the animal species, the object of their desire, can not escape them. We know that our migratory birds are, during their travels, exposed to a real war of extermination, and an ornithological international commission has already examined, not unprofitably, all the questions relating to their preservation. Would it not be possible to put fur seals under the protection of the navy of civilized nations? What has happened in the Southern Ocean may serve as a warning to us. Less than a century ago these amphibia existed there in countless herds. In 1808, when Fanning visited the islands of South Georgia, one ship left those shores, carrying away 14,000 sealskins belonging to the species Arctocephalus Australis. He himself obtained 57,000 of them, and he estimated at 112,000 the number of these animals killed during the few weeks the sailors spent there that year. In 1822 Weddell visits these islands and he estimates at 1,200,000 the number of skins obtained in that locality. The same year 320,000 fur seals were killed in the South Shetlands. The inevitable consequences of this slaughter were a rapid decrease in the number of these animals. So, in spite of the measures of protection taken during the last few years by the Governor of the Falkland Islands, these seals are still very rare, and the naturalists of the French expedition of the Romanche remained for nearly a year at Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands without being able to capture a single specimen. It is a source of wealth which is now exhausted. It will soon be thus with the Callorhinus ursinus in the North Pacific Ocean, and it is time to insure to these animals a security which may allow them regular reproduction. I have followed with much attention the investigations which have been made by the Government of the United States on this subject. The reports of the commissioners sent to the Pribilof Islands have made known to naturalists a very large number of facts of great scientific interest, and have demonstrated that a regulated system of killing may be safely applied in the case of these herds of seals when there is a superfluity of males. What might be called a tax on celibacy was applied in this way in the most satisfactory manner, and the indefinite preservation of the species would have been assured, if the emigrants, on their way back to their breeding places, had not been attacked and pursued in every way. There is, then, every reason to turn to account the very complete information which we possess on the conditions of fur-seal life in order to prevent their annihilation, and an International Commission can alone determine the rules, from which the fishermen should not depart. Accept, etc., A. MILNE EDWARDS, Director of the Museum of Natural History. REPLY OF DR. ALFRED NEHRING, PROFESSOR DER ZOOLOGIE AN DER KOENIGLI CHEN LANDWIRTHSCHAFTLICHEN HOCHSCHULE ZU BERLIN. KÖNIGLICHE LANDWIRTHSCHAFTLICHE Herrn C. HART MERRIAM, HOCHSCHULE ZU BERLIN, Washington, D. C., U. S. Department of Agriculture: HOCHGEEHRTER HERR! Nachdem ich Ihr ausführliches, sehr interessantes Schreiben vom 2. d. M., welches mir durch Herrn John Brinkerhoff Jackson, Legationssekretär bei der nordamerikanischen Gesandtschaft hieselbst, gestern zuging, genau durchgelesen und erwogen habe, verfehle ich nicht, Ihnen meine Ansicht über den Inhalt derselben zugehen zu lassen. Ihre Darlegungen über die Lebensweise und namentlich über die jährlichen Wanderungen der Pelzrobben (Callorhinus ursinus), welche auf den Prybilof-Inseln ihre Fortpflanzungsstätte haben, sind so klar und überzeugend, harmonieren auch so vollständing mit dem, was andere zuverlässige Naturforscher beobachtet haben, dass ich den von Ihnen daraus gezogenen Deductionen durchaus beistimme. Ich bin, gleich Ihnen, der Ansicht, dass die auffallende Abnahme der Pelzrobben auf den Rookeries der Prybilof Inseln, welche sich in den letzten Jahren mehr und mehr gezeigt hat, vorzugsweise oder vielleicht ausschliesslich auf die irrationelle, verwüstende Robbenjagd der auf offener See jagenden Seehunds- und Pelzrobben-Jäger zurückzuführen ist. Die einzige rationelle Jagdmethode, welche sich für die Pelzrobbe (Callorhinus ursinus) geeignet ist und eine Ausrottung dieser werthvollen Thierart hindert, ist diejenige, welche bisher auf den Prybilof-Inseln unter Aufsicht der Regierung ausgeübt wurde. Jede andere Jagdart auf die nordische Pelzrobbe sollte, nach meiner Ansicht, durch internationale Vereinbarungen verboten werden; ich möchte höchstens eine lokale Verfolgung der Pelzrobben, da, wo sie etwa in ihren südlichen Winterquartieren der Fischerei schädlich werden, befürworten. Die pelagische Pelzrobben-Jagd halte ich für sehr irrationell; sie muss bald zu einer an Ausrottung grenzenden Vermindrung der Pelzrobben führen. Hochachtungsvoll und ergebenst, Prof. Dr. ALFred Nehring, Professor d. Zoologie an der kgl. Landwirthschaftlichen Hochschule zu Berlin. [Translation.] ROYAL AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE OF BERLIN, Mr. C. HART MERRIAM, Berlin, April 21, 1892. United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.: HIGHLY ESTEEMED SIR: I have carefully read and considered your elaborate and very interesting letter of the 2d instant, which I received yesterday through Mr. John Brinkerhoff Jackson, Secretary of Lega tion of the North American Legation in this city, and, in reply, I send you a statement of my views with regard to its contents. What you say concerning the mode of life, and especially the annual migrations of the fur-seal (Callorhinus Ursinus), whose breeding places are the Pribilof Islands, is so clear and convincing, and harmonizes so perfectly with what has been observed by other reliable scientists, that I fully agree with your deductions. I am, like yourself, of the opinion that the remarkable decrease of fur seals on the rookeries of the Pribilof Islands, which has, of late years, become more and more evident, is to be attributed mainly, or perhaps exclusively, to the unreasonable destruction caused by the sealers who ply their avocation in the open sea. The only rational method of taking the fur seal, and the only one that is not likely to result in the extermination of this valuable animal, is the one which has hitherto been employed on the Pribilof Islands under the supervision of the Government. Any other method of taking the northern fur seal should, in my opinion, be prohibited by international agreement. I should, at furthest, approve a local pursuit of the fur seal, where it is destructive of the fisheries in its southern winter quarters. I regard pelagic fur-sealing as very unwise; it must soon lead to a decrease, bordering on extermination, of the fur-seal. With great respect, Prof. Dr. ALFRED NEHRING, Professor of Zoology in the Royal Agricultural College of Berlin. Reply of Prof. Robert Collett, of the Zoological Museum of the University of ChristianiaNorway. CHRISTIANIA, April 22, 1892. MY DEAR SIR: It would be a very easy reply to your highly inter esting treatise of the fur seal, which you have been kind enough to send us, when I only answered you that I agree with you entirely in all points. No doubt it would be the greatest value for the rookeries on the Prybilof Island, as well as for the preservation of the existence of the seal, if it would be possible to stop the sealing at sea at all. But that will no doubt be very difficult, when so many nations partake in the sealing and how that is to go about I can not know. My own countrymen are killing every year many thousands of seals and cysto phore on the ice barrier between Spitzbergen and Greenland, but never females with young; either are the old ones caught, or, and that is the greatest number, the young seals. But there is a close time, accepted by the different nations, just to prohibit the killing of the females with young. Perhaps a similar close-time could be accepted in the Bering Sea, but that is a question about which I can not have any opinion. Many thanks for the paper. R. COLLETT. Reply of Dr. Gustav Hartlaub, of Bremen, Germany. Herrn C. HART MERRIAM: BREMEN, Apr. 23, '92. GEEHRTER HERR: Ich habe Ihr vortreffliches Memoire über den Northern Fur Seal mit dem lebhaftesten Interesse gelesen und wieder gelesen. Ich bin allerdings weit davon entfernt, mir selbst ein competentes Urtheil in dieser Sache zuzuschreiben. Nach Allem aber, was so klar und einleuchtend von Ihnen zusammengestellt ist, will es mir scheinen, dass die von Ihnen vorgeschlagenen Maassregeln, dem drohenden Untergange des Northern Fur Seal vorzubeugen, die einzig richtigen und Erfolg versprechenden sind. Ich bedauere sehr, dass aus practischen Gründen wohl nicht daran zu denken sein wird, dass der Robbenschlag für einige Jahre ganz sistirt werde! das würde noch wirksamer sein, dem schwer bedrohten Thiere numerisch aufzuhelfen. Jedenfalls ist hier Gefahr im Verzuge und man kann nicht stark genug betonen, dass doch die von Ihnen so wirksam motivirten Vorschläge baldmöglichst zur Ausführung gelangen möchten. Mit bestem Dank für das meiner Begutachtung geschenkte Vertrauen, zeichne ich, geehrter Herr, Ihr ganz ergebener, G. HARTLAUB, Dr. [Translation.] Mr. C. HART MERRIAM: BREMEN, April 23, 1892. DEAR SIR: Your excellent report on the Northern fur seal I have read and reread with intense interest. I am far from attributing to myself a competent judgment regarding this matter, but considering all facts which you have so clearly and convincingly combined and expressed, it seems to me that the measures you propose in order to prohibit the threatening decay of the northern fur seal are the only correct ones promising an effective result. I sincerely regret that for practical reasons it can not be thought of to prohibit fur-seal hunting for a few years entirely, as this would naturally assist numerically the menaced animal. There is at any rate danger in view, and it can not be too strongly emphasized that your so well founded proposals should be executed at the earliest time possible. With sincere thanks for the confidence you have placed in my judg. ment, I am, dear sir, your most obedient, G. HARTLAUB, Dr. Reply of Professor Count Tommaso Salvadori, of the Museo Zoologico, Turin, Italy. C. HART MERRIAM, ZOOLOGICAL MUSEUM, Turin, April 25, 1892. U. S. Department of Agriculture, Division of Ornithology, Washington, D. C.: DEAR SIR: I have received your letter concerning the Northern fur seal, on the condition of which you have been selected as naturalist to investigate and report by the Government of the United States. As a whole I agree with you as to the facts and conclusions drawn on your report, although the increasing number of seal skins actually secured and sold, as a result of pelagic sealing, shown in your table, does not sufficiently proove, in my mind, that we are already in the period of a decided diminution of the number of living seals. Still, I |