The Cordova daily times., 1914-12-21
I HE TRAGEDIES IF PR|BLOFS |S
 FASCINATING

in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
 The fur seal it seems, is not 6 true seal. He is kin to the bear family.
 The true seal has no ears, but the fur seal and his big cousin, the sea lion, have ears like a bear or a pig He is the lineal descendant of bear which has learned to swim
 The fur seal spends his winters in aristocratic ease around Honolulu, en- toying the warm waters of the south. cru oceans. In the spring the call of the North gets into his blood and a law, mysterious as that which makes the tide to flow and the salmon to turn their noses toward the rivers of their birth, starts the fur seal northward to the Priblof and Com mander islands, which lie, fog enscons- tNt ill lilt DGlluS Dtd.
 First come the bulls, kings of the herd
 These battle-scarred leaders pick out a home amongst the rocks, and hay ing established themselves in cozy apartments by right of conquest. set tie down to await the coming of their consorts.
 The females arrive nex The year that Professor Kincaid spent on the i'ribilof islands, as assistant commits sioner of the fur seal commission headed by Dr. David Starr Jordan, there were 10000 bulls and 13O, 900 females.
 The seal is a polygamous brute, and he gathers from ten to forty wives about him, according 10 his strength in battle and the chances of fortune;
 On the outskirts of this community gather the bachelors. young bucks who have not yet essayed to break in- 70 the seal society, and the females too young to undertake family cares.
 The first duty of each mature fe- male on reaching the land is to bring into the world a pup.
 This seal pup, barring human ba- bies, is just about the prettiest, Iiv- Hest. fatteat, most playful little brat of all the animals that God put upon the earth.
 He weighs about ten pounds at birth His coat is a rich soft black, like the finest black velvet His great brown eyes are human in their beauty.
 The pups gather in groups, huddling together like dog pups mad playing like kittens. yapping and leaping and shaking their fat little sides with seal laughter
 When the pup is hungry he seeks his own mother never another mother. and takes his refresrment as God de- signed babies to do,
 The pup never feeds at any breast than his own mothers.
 Keep that fact in mind.
 A great many years ago women be- gan to crave sealskln coats. Women's 7nity drove the Russian explorers to hunt new sealing grounds, and in this way the Pribilofs were discovered behind the mist curtains which hung over Boring Sea.
 A Russian company first exploited the seal islands. Two American com. panies succeeded, and now the islands are closed to sealing.
 While the killing of seals was con. fined to the land Professor Kincaid believes, the harm done to the herds was slight. But the commercial con. ditions, the lease of the privilege to one company, led to the deep sea. or pelagic sealing.
 Once a week the mother seal swims out to sea for food.
 or shore, some fine morning. lies 2 schooner surrounded by small boats, md in each small boat are several skilled gunners or harpooners.
 Tho glossy head of the mother seal appears a moment above the surface There is q crack, crack of rifles and swish of harpoons.
 A stain of red spreads over the water and the mother sinks. Perhaps the boats reach her in time to gain pelt; perhaps they don't
 But back on the beach there frol- ieks roly-poly little pup. yapping for hi hV.sx, e.