Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/475

Rh The mistake is in the implication that the order of the department has anything to do with this condition. As a matter of fact the greatly depleted condition of the herd of fur seals is due to an entirely different cause fully demonstrated and easily understood.

The fur seal gets all its food in the open sea at great distances from land. It resorts to the land only to bring forth and nourish its young to self-dependence. It is resident for this purpose on certain islands in Bering Sea from May to November. The mother seal goes 150 to 200 miles from the rookery to find her food, leaving her young behind, returning to nurse it and again go away to feed. With the storms of winter all classes of animals leave the islands and make a long migration

down through the Pacific Ocean to the latitude of Southern California, returning slowly along the coast.

It had been the custom of the Indians of the northwest coast of America from the earliest times to go out in their canoes a day's journey to hunt with the spear stragglers from the migrating herd on its northward journey. It was a precarious business and the number of animals taken was unimportant. In 1879, however, sailing vessels began to be used to take the Indians and their canoes out to the main body of the herd and to enable them to follow its course. This new form of sealing was very successful. The fleet grew in numbers and the catch multiplied until it reached the total of 140,000 skins in a single season. The operations of the fleet gradually extended over the entire migration