68 ORAL AKGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 



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the breeding season and to the close of the rutting period without seeking food. 

 The young again, born in any particular season, are not weaned, or not fully weaned, 

 nor do they, under normal circumstances, leave the immediate vicinity of the shores 

 till the time of their tinal departure. 



305. It is thus only the classes of bachelor and female seals that can, nnder any 

 circumstances, be found leaving the islands in search of food during the breeding 

 season. Of the females, the yearlings associate with the bachelors. Some of the 

 two-year-olds may seek the vicinity of the rookery-grounds for the purpose of meet- 

 ing the males, but probably they do not lotig remain there, while it is believed that 

 most of them are covered at sea. Barren females, again, whetlier without young 

 from age, from an insufficiency of males, or inefficient service, are not in any way 

 permanently attached to the islands at this time. 



306. The remaining — and, at the time in question, most important — class is that of 

 the breeding females. These, some time after tlie l)irth of the young and the subse- 

 quent copulation with the male, begin to leave the rookery-ground and seek the 

 water. This they are able to do because of the lessened interest of the beachmasters 

 in them, and more particularly after many of the beachmasters themselves begin to 

 leave their stands. Thus, by about the middle of August, probably only one-half of 

 the females, or even less, are to be seen at any one time on the rookeries. Snegiloft", 

 the native foreman in charge of the rookeries on Behring Island, expressed the opin- 

 ion that the females first leave their young and begin to frequent the water about a 

 month after the birth of the young. Bryant says about six weeks. Other authori- 

 ties are less definite on this point, but, according to observations made by ourselves, 

 the mothers and young were present on the Pribylolf rookeries in ap]iroximately 

 equal numbers in the last days of July, while, on the same rookeries, in the third 

 week of August, the young largely outnumbered the mothers present at any one 

 time, and, in so far as could be ascertained l>y observation, the females were disport- 

 ing themselves in the sea off the fronts of the rookeries. 



307. It is very generally assumed that the female, on thus beginning to leave the 

 rookery-ground, at once resumes her habit of engaging in the active quest for food, 

 and though this would appear to be only natural, particularly in view of the extra 

 drain produced by the demands of the young, it must be remembered that with 

 scarcely any exception, the stomachs of even the bachelor seals killed upon the islands 

 are found void of food, and that all seals resorting to the islands seem, in a great 

 degree, to share in a common abstinence. While, therefore, it may be considered 

 certain that after a certain period, the females begin to seek such food as can be 

 obtained, the absence of excrementitious matter on the rookery grounds, elsewhere 

 referred to, show that this cannot occur till towards the close of the breeding season. 

 It may, further, be stated, that there is a very general belief among the natives, both 

 on tlie Pribylotf and Commander Islands, to the effect that the females do not leave 

 the land to feed while engaged in suckling their young, and that neither of the two 

 females killed in our presence for natural history purposes on Behring Island, on the 

 5th September, had any trace of food in the stomach, though killed within a few 

 yards of the rookery from which they had just been driven. Also bearing on the 

 same point is the statement made in a memorandum received from Her Majesty's 

 Minister at TAkio, based on information obtained from a gentleman fully conversant 

 with the habits and haunts of the fur-seal of the western side of the North Pacific, 

 as follows : " It is sometimes stated that the breeding cows are in the habit of leaving 

 the rookeries to fish for the support of their young, but the experienced authority 

 on whose remarks these notes are founded is not of this opinion. He has never found 

 food inside the female fur-seal taken on the breeding grounds. 



'& o^ 



Sir Charles Eussell. — Now it is not tiiiimportaTit, I think, to note 

 there, that the two females who were killed, whose migration is vouched 

 for as a fact, were killed as late as the 5th of September; and when it 

 is borne in mind that all the pup-bearing females have got to the Pribi- 

 lof Islands admittedly by some where about the middle of June — cer- 

 tainly all practically by the 20th June, — it is a remarkable fact there 

 are two female seals bearing pups killed on the 5th of September, and 

 therefore very late in the season, and yet even without any particle or 

 trace of food in their stomachs. 



Now the British Commissioners seem to have weighed- this matter 

 very carefully and judiciously, and I think in paragraph 308 they prob- 

 ably state what is the actual fact. They say: 



It appears to us to be qtiite probable, however, that toward the close of the season 

 of suckling, the female seals may actually begin to spend a considerable portion of 

 ■^heir time at sea in search of food. It is unlikely that this occurs to any potable 



