BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 205 



Spring, a very intelligent man, assures me that lie lias seen the young 

 taken from the womb frequently in a very advanced state, and that on 

 one occasion lie witnessed the taking of a live young one from the womb 

 of a mother seal killed, evidently, witbin a few hours of parturition. 

 This pup survived about 24 hours, being kept on board in a tub of water 

 wherein it appeared to swim quite naturally. He is convinced that 

 under natural process this pup would have been born within 24 hours 

 of the time when the mother was killed, and is quite incredulous as to 

 tbe assertion that if born at seti it must sink, as has been asserted. 

 "Victoria, B. 0., September 15, 1882." 



Port Town send, April, 22, 1S83. Capt, Charles Willoughby, an old 

 sealer and fisherman, and receutly United States Indian agent at !N~eah 

 Bay, says: "The fur-seal pups are very common at iSTeah Bay every sea- 

 son. Last summer, July, 1882, l Young Sial,' a Makah Indian, killed a 

 female seal and brought it ashore in his canoe. He opened it in the 

 canoe and took out a live pup which, I think, from its appearance, would 

 have been born in a very few hours. It was very lively, and ' Sial ' tied 

 a string to one of its flippers and threw it overboard, where it swam 

 round in a playful manner. Sial took the end of the string ashore, 

 where his boy Luke, one of the school-boys, held it. I saw Luke with 

 four of these fur seal pups with strings tied to them, playing just out- 

 side the surf. The assertion that they will sink is all nonsense; every 

 Indian and every white man who has lived at Cape Flattery knows that 

 fur-seal imps will swim as soon as they are born. I have seen fur seals 

 hauled out on the Farallones where they had pups. I put one of those 

 pups into the surf, but it did not live; the water was all foam and it did 

 not have a good chance. I think the fur seals about Cape Flattery come 

 from Lower California; their habits are different from the seals of the 

 Pribloff Islands, and they have better fur. I was Indian agent at Xeah 

 Bay over four years, and I have had ample opportunity of observation, 

 and it is a common sight every season to see boys have fur-seal pups, 

 with strings tied to them, swimming in the bay just outside the breakers 

 or in the brook at the agency." 



This statement of Captain Willoughby about Indian boys tying strings 

 to fur-seal pups and letting them swim in the brook and bay I can cor- 

 roborate, having, during a period of sixteen years, observed the same 

 thing myself frequently every sealing season. 



April 22. Mr. Henry Landes, formerly trader at IS T eah Bay and dealer 

 in furs in connection with the Alaska Commercial Company, and now 

 president of the First National Bank in Port Townsend says: "I have 

 traded in furs many years, particularly seal and sea otter skins. I 

 know the fur-seal skins of the Pribloff Islands, and the fur-seal skins 

 from Cape Flattery ; the Cape Flattery seal has the handsomest and 

 longest fur, and used to bring the highest price in the London market, 

 but the Indians of late (1883) have pulled and stretched the skins and 



