C.-6635, 1892) that all of the wounded seals which escape capture quickly recover from their wounds and in reality are not seriously injured, only about 5 per cent at most being lost, other seal hunters, proprietors and masters of sealing schooners, and others who have had access to trustworthy sources of information, admit a much larger percentage of loss, ranging from 40 to 50 per cent, or even higher. That the first claim is absurd is evident to any one familiar with hunting, even on land, where the chances of recovering fatally wounded game are at a maximum. Only such seals as are instantly disabled can be secured, and even many of these must be lost, since the specific gravity of a dead seal is greater than that of the water in which it is killed. Those only wounded, whether fatally or otherwise, dive and escape capture. The less severely wounded may, and in many cases doubtless do, recover from their wounds; but, in the nature of things, many others must die of their injuries. There is a wide range of chances between an instantaneously fatal or disabling shot and a slight wound from which the victim may readily recover, with obviously a large proportion of them on the fatal side of the dividing line. It is necessary, therefore to admit that a very large number of seals are killed in pelagic sealing which form no part of the actual catch. Pelagic catch 90 per cent females. 11. The proof of the claim that 80 to 90 per cent (probably the latter figure is nearer the truth) of the seals killed in pelagic sealing are females is varied and conclusive. It is so stated by the experts in the fur trade, whose business it is to classify and grade the skins in accordance with their value and quality. The usual marks which characterize maternity are not only obvious in a seal's pelt, but the quality of the pelt of the breeding female is much inferior to that of the "bachelor" seals, which constitute the catch from the rookeries. The Northwest Coast or pelagic catch has sometimes been designated in the trade as the "female catch," from the great predominance of female pelts. Dead pups. Again, dead pups at the Pribilof rookeries were of rare occurrence prior to pelagic sealing in Bering Sea, being too infrequent to attract attention, and generally due to some obvious accident on the rookeries. Soon after pelagic sealing began in Bering Sea dead pups became so numerous as to attract general attention, both by their number and condition, their extreme emaciation clearly indicating death from starvation. The number of dead pups on the Pribilof rookeries at the end of the season in 1891 was estimated by good authorities at 20,000. why fe Reasons males are killed. It is further a well-established fact that the mother seal recognizes her own young and will permit only her own to nurse her. Hence every unweaned pup which loses its mother is doomed to die of starvation. It is further well known that the mother seals leave the islands at frequent intervals and proceed far out to sea in search of food. 12. From the evidence in hand it is obvious that in pelagic sealing female seals are not killed by preference but from necessity, if any seals are to be taken: first, because in the North Pacific the male seals are too alert and travel too rapidly to be readily taken, while in Bering Sea they are either continuously on the islands or make only short and infrequent excursions into the open sea; second, because the females while in the North Pacific are less agile than the males, being heavy with young, and, arriving later at the islands, take more time for the journey, traveling less rapidly and spending much time asleep on the water, and are thus more easily approached by the hunter; in Bering Sea they make long excursions for food, and are thus again here much more exposed to the attacks of the pelagic hunter than the males. 13. From the foregoing summary it is evident that the decline in the number of the killable seals at the Pribilof rookeries Decrease due to pe- and the immense decrease in the total number of seals lagic sealing. on the Pribilof Islands are not due to any change in the management of the seal herd at the islands, but to the direct and unquestionably deleterious effects of pelagic sealing. At the islands the killing is regulated with reference to the number of killable seals on the rookeries; the designated quota is limited to nonbreeding young males, and every seal killed is utilized. The killing, as thus regulated, does not impair the productiveness of the rookeries. In pelagic sealing the slaughter is indiscriminate and unlimited, and a large proportion of the seals killed are lost. The catch also consists almost wholly of breeding females, which at the time of capture are either heavy with young or have young on the rookeries depending upon them for sustenance. Thus two or more seals are destroyed to every one utilized and nearly all are drawn from the class on which the very existence of the seal herd depends. sealing. 14. The results of pelagic sealing may be thus summarized: (1) The immense reduction of the herd at the Pribilof Islands Results of pelagic and its threatened annihilation. (2) The extermination of the Pribilof herd will be practically accomplished within a few years if pelagic sealing is continued. (3) There will soon be too few seals left in the North Pacific and Bering Sea to render pelagic sealing commercially profitable. (4) The harm already done can not be repaired in years, even if all sealing, whether pelagic or at the islands, be strictly prohibited for a considerable period. STATEMENTS AND LETTERS OF NATURALISTS. STATEMENT BY PROF. T. H. HUXLEY. The following statement by Prof. T. H. Huxley, F. R. S., etc., the eminent naturalist, was prepared at the request of the counsel for the United States. As appears from the statement itself, it was given by Professor Huxley as a scientist, not as a retained advocate. 1. The problem of the fur-seal fishery appears to me to be exactly analogous to that which is presented by salmon fisheries. The Pribilof Islands answer to the upper waters of a salmon river; the Bering Sea south of them and the waters of the northwest Pacific from California to the Shumagin Islands to the rest of the course of the river, its estuary, and the adjacent seacoast. The animals breed in the former and feed in the latter, migrating at regular periods from the one to the other. (The question whether the fur-seals have any breeding places on the northwest coast outside of Bering Sea may be left open, as there seems to be no doubt that the main body breeds at the Pribilofs.) 2. An important difference is that the females, bachelors, and yearling fur-seals feed largely within a radius of, say, 50 miles of the Pribilot Islands, while the adult salmon do not feed (sensibly, at any rate) in the upper waters. 3. It is clear in the case of fur-seals, as in that of the salmon, that man is an agent of destruction of very great potency, probably outweighing all others. It would be possible in the case of a salmon river to fish it in such a fashion that every ascending or descending fish should be caught and the fishery be in this way surely and completely destroyed. All our salmon-fishery legislation is directed towards the end of preserving the breeding grounds on the one hand and, on the other, of preventing the lower-water fishermen from capturing too large a proportion of the ascending fish. 4. Our fishery regulations are strict and minute. Every salmon river has its fishery board, composed of representatives of both the upper and the lower water fisheries, whose business it is to make by-laws under the acts of Parliament and to see that they are carried out. A Government inspector of fisheries looks after them and holds inquiries under the authority of the home secretary in case of disputes. On the whole, the system works well. The fisheries of rivers, which have been pretty nearly depopulated, have been restored, and the yield of the best is mamtained. But the upper-water and lower-water proprietors are everlastingly at war, each vowing that the other is ruining the fisheries, and the inspector has large opportunities of estimating the value of diametrically opposite assertions about matters of fact. 5. In the case of the fur-seal fisheries, the destructive agency of man is prepotent on the Pribilof Islands. It is obvious that the seals might be destroyed and driven away completely in two or three seasons. Moreover, as the number of "bachelors" in any given season is easily ascertained, it is possible to keep down the take to such a percentage as shall do no harm to the stock. The conditions for efficient regulation are here quite ideal. 6. But in Bering Sea and on the northwest coast the case is totally altered. In order to get rid of all complications, let it be supposed that western North America, from Bering Straits to California, is in the possession of one power, and that we have only to consider the question of the regulations which that power should make and enforce in order to preserve the fur-seal fisheries. Suppose, further, that the authority of that power extended over Bering Sea and over all the northwest Pacific east of a line drawn from the Shumagin Islands to California. Under such conditions I should say (looking at nothing but the preservation of the seals) that the best course would be to prohibit the taking of the fur-seals anywhere except on the Pribilof Islands, and to limit the take to such percentage as experience proved to be consistent with the preservation of a good average stock. The furs would be in the best order, the waste of life would be least, and, if the system were honestly worked, there could be no danger of overfishing. 7. However, since northwest America does not belong to one power, and since international law does not acknowledge Bering Sea to be a mare clausum, nor recognize the jurisdiction of a riverain power beyond the 3-mile limit, it is quite clear that this ideal arrangement is impracticable. The case of the fur-seal fisheries is, in fact, even more difficult than that of the salmon fisheries, in such a river as the Rhine, where the upper waters belong to one power and the lower to another. 8. The northwest Pacific, from California to Shumagin (at any rate), is open to all the world, and, according to the evidence, the seals keep mainly outside the 3-mile limit. A convention between Britain and the United States (backed by a number of active cruisers) might restrain the subjects of both. But what about ships under another flag? 9. Moreover, I do not see how the Canadians could be reasonably expected to give up their fishery for the sake of preserving the Pribilof fisheries, in which they have no interest. 10. If, however, it is admitted that the Canadians can not be asked to give up their fisheries, I see no way out of the difficulty except one, and I do not know that it is practicable. It is that the Pribilof, Bering, and northwest coast fur-seal fisheries shall be considered national property on the part of the United States and Great Britain, to be worked by a joint fishery commission, which shall have power to make by-laws under the terms of a general treaty, to which I suppose other powers (who have hardly any interest in the matter) could be got to agree. 11. I am free to confess that my experience of the proceedings of fishery boards does not encourage me to hope that the proceedings of such a commission would be altogether harmonious, but if it were composed of sensible men they would, sooner or later, struggle out into a modus vivendi; for, after all, it is as much the Canadian interest that the Pribilof fisheries should be preserved as it is the United States interest that the seals should not be extirpated in Bering Sea and the northwest Pacific. 12. In such a case as this I do not believe that the enforcement of a close time, either in Bering Sea or on the northwest coast, would be of any practical utility, unless the fishing is absolutely prohibited (which I take to be out of the question). It must be permitted while the seals are in the sea; and if it is permitted there is no limit to the destruction which may be effected. Numerous as the seals may be, they are a trifle compared with herring schools and cod walls, and human agency is relatively a far more important factor in destruction in their case than in that of herrings and cod. Up to this time fishing has made no sensible impression on the great herring and cod fisheries; but it has been easy to extirpate seal fisheries. 13. Finally, I venture to remark that there are only two alternative courses worth pursuing. One is to let the fur-seals be extirpated. Mankind will not suffer much if the ladies are obliged to do without sealskin jackets; and the fraction of the English, Canadian, and American population which lives on the sealskin industry will be no worse off than the vastly greater multitude who have had to suffer for the vagaries of fashion times out of number. Certainly, if the seals are to be a source of constant bickering between two nations the sooner they are abolished the better. The other course is to tread down all merely personal and trade interest in pursuit of an arrangement that will work and be fair all round; and to sink all the stupidities of national vanity and political self-seeking along with them. There is a great deal too much of all these undeniable elements apparent in the documents which I have been studying. APRIL 25, 1892. T. H. HUXLEY. AFFIDAVIT BY DR. PHILIP LUTLEY SCLATER. Philip Lutley Sclater, PH. D., secretary of the Zoological Society of London, being duly sworn, doth depose and say that in his opinion as a naturalist 1. Unless proper measures are taken to restrict the indiscriminate capture of the fur-seal in the North Pacific he is of opinion that the extermination of this species will take place in a few years, as it has already done in the case of other species of the same group in other parts of the world. 2. It seems to him that the proper way of proceeding would be to stop the killing of females and young of the fur-seal altogether or as far as possible, and to restrict the killing of the males to a certain number in each year. 3. The only way he can imagine by which these rules could be carried out is by killing the seals only in the islands at the breeding time (at which time it appears that the young males keep apart from the females and old males), and by preventing altogether, as far as possible, the destruction of the fur-seals at all other times and in other places. PHILIP LUTLEY SCLATER, PH. D., F. R. S. Sworn at the offices of the Zoological Society of London, No. 3 Hanover Square, London, England, this 16th day of May, A. D. 1892, before me. [L. S.] FRANCIS W. FRIGOUT, Vice and Deputy and Acting Consul-General of the |