BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 203 



but I have thrown plenty overboard, and they always swim as soon 

 as taken from their mothers, when they are ready to be born, say about 

 June or 4th of July. The hair seals (Karschowe) have their young ones 

 in the caves about Cape Flattery. The Indians go in the caves with 

 torches and clubs, and kill the seals. We eat the meat and use the 

 skins for buoys (Do-Jco-kuptl), and make oil out of the fat. The fur seal 

 (Kaithladoos) don't go in the caves, they have their young ones in the 

 water or on the kelp, like the sea otters ( Tejuck). We think the fur seals 

 come here from California." 



March 30. Ko-16-whad, or Billy Buster, says : " I have been to Alaska, 

 on schooners, hunting sea otter. I have been to Saint Paul's Island and 

 seen the fur seals on the land. They are different from the seals here, 

 for they have their young ones on the land, and the fur seals of the 

 coast have their young ones in the water. I have seen them in August 

 off in the ocean, I think one hundred miles southwest of Cape Flattery, 

 lots of them with their little ones playing around them, but they are 

 very shy then, and the young ones make such a noise that canoes can't 

 get near them. It is about the time the seals have their young that the 

 seal fishery at the cape is stopped. I am quite sure that these fur seals 

 act different from those on Saint Paul's. I think they come from Cali- 

 fornia, and I don't believe they go to Saint Paul's Island. The Indians 

 all say that the fur seals have young ones in the water like sea otter do." 



This last Indian I have known personally many years. He speaks 

 good English, has been several voyages on vessels for sea otters, has 

 been to the Pribloff Islands, Bering Sea, Okhotsk, and the coast of 

 Japan, and is a good otter hunter, as well as seal hunter, is intelligent 

 and well informed about the habits of marine animals. 



April 2. Capt. James Dalgardno, of sealing schooner -Mary Taylor, 

 says : " Little seals are very plenty towards the close of the season, which 

 varies. Some years the seals leave about the 20th of June, other sea- 

 sons not till the last of July. But the fur seal is plenty about 100 miles 

 off the cape in August. I have seen hundreds of pups cut out of their 

 mothers apparently just ready to be born ; they would scramble around 

 on deck and make a cry like new-born lambs. I have thrown lots of 

 them overboard, and they invariably swim as soon as they get into the 

 water; it is all bosh about pup-seals sinking like a stone. If the seal 

 pups at Saint Paul's Island can't swim as soon as they are born they 

 must have different habits from the seals here, because I have seen so 

 many of them swimming after they had been taken alive from their 

 mothers' wombs. Every sealer, both white men and Indians, know 

 about seal pups as well as I do, and they know that my statement is 

 correct." 



April 11. After my return to Port Townsend, one of the sailing 

 schooners, the Chainpiom, Capt. E. H. McAlmond, came up from Cape 

 Flattery, and, in an interview in my office this day, Captain McAlmond 

 says : "In the latter part of June, 1882, while cruising 10 or 50 miles 



