Since that time, four living specimens have been captured, and sent to the New York Aquarium, where they lived for satisfactory periods.  The indoor life and atmosphere did not seem to injure the natural vitality of the animals.  In fact, I think they were far more lively in the Aquarium than were the sluggish creatures that Mr. Ward saw on the Triangle reefs, and described in his report of the expedition.

It is quite possible that there are yet alive a few specimens of this odd species; but the Damocletian sword of destruction hangs over them suspended by a fine hair, and it is to be expected that in the future some roving sea adventurer will pounce upon the Remnant, and wipe it out of existence for whatever reason may to him seem good.

[Illustration:  CALIFORNIA ELEPHANT SEAL Photographed on Guadalupe Island by C.H.  Townsend.]

THE CALIFORNIA ELEPHANT SEAL, (Mirounga angustirostris).—­This remarkable long-snouted species of seal was reluctantly stricken from the fauna of the United States several years ago, and for at least fifteen years it has been regarded as totally extinct.  Last year, however (1911), the Albatross scientific expedition, under the control of Director C.H.  Townsend of the New York Aquarium, visited Guadalupe Island, 175 miles off the Pacific coast of Lower California and there found about 150 living elephant seals.  They took six living specimens, all of which died after a few months in captivity.  Ever since that time, first one person and then another comes to the front with a cheerful proposition to go to those islands and “clean up” all the remainder of those wonderful seals.  One hunting party could land on Guadalupe, and in one week totally destroy the last remnant of this almost extinct species.  To-day the only question is, Who will be mean enough to do it?

Fortunately, those seals have no commercial value whatsoever.  The little oil they would yield would not pay the wages of cook’s mate.  The proven impossibility of keeping specimens alive in captivity, even for one year, and the absence of cash value in the skins, even for museum purposes, has left nothing of value in the animals to justify an expedition to kill or to capture them.  No zoological garden or park desires any of them, at any price.  Adult males attain a length of sixteen feet, and females eleven feet.  Formerly this species was abundant in San Christobal Bay, Lower California.

At present, Mexico is in no frame of mind to provide real protection to a small colony of seals of no commercial value, 175 miles from her mainland, on an uninhabited island.  It is wildly improbable that those seals will be permitted to live.  It is a safe prediction that our next news of the elephant seals of Guadalupe will tell of the total extinction of those last 140 survivors of the species.