710 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



in larger numbers than on the liauling grounds, tliis does not represent 

 a tithe of the reserve of young males present in 1890. Double the num- 

 ber here recorded would be ample. (4) This statement has absolutely 

 no point. (5) The coupling of land with sea killing, as a cause of 

 decline, is a logical outcome of this report. It is, however, a falsehood 

 pure and simple to assert that land killing had anything to do with the 

 decline. Sea killing, and this alone, in its killing of gravid and nurs- 

 ing females with the consequent destruction of their offspring, has 

 brought about the depleted condition of the herd. 



Page'389 : There is one large class of statements in this report which 

 are of the nature of deliberate misrepresentations made for effect and 

 which can not be fully treated without going into too great detail. One 

 example will suffice to show the nature of many of these statements 

 which have been iiassed over in silence. Mr. Elliott here says: "As 

 for Little Eastern, not a single drive has been made from there this 

 year. At no time was there more than 12 to 15 holluschickie upon its 

 grassy borders last July and August." By reference to the table of 

 daily killings (Vol. II, Murray, p. 258, x), already many times alluded 

 to, we find that in the whole time since the islands came into the pos- 

 session of the United States not a single drive is recorded from this 

 rookery except in the years 1883 and 1884, when three times each bach- 

 elors from this little ')okery were included in drives from East rookery. 

 The bachelors from Little East rookery naturally haul up with those 

 from East rookery in accordance with the instinct of the fur seal to go 

 where the crowd is. 



Page 390: Another example of what can not be considered as other 

 than willful misrepresentation is found in this recjord of iield notes for 

 Zoltoi. On the very 19th of July when he says that there is "not a 

 single holluschickie on Zoltoi sands" and "not one has hauled there 

 thus far this season," his own record of the killings for the year given 

 on page 533 of this report shows that a drive was made from this haul- 

 ing ground that very day, and that a previous drive was made on 

 June 24. Eurther comment is not necessary. 



Page 392 : Mr. Elliott here records, under date of July 18, that of a 

 drive of 1,192 seals, 115 were "all over six years," besides a certain 

 number of "bitten 4-year-olds and a few 5-year-old wigs." It is true 

 that these are called "somnolent, apathetic, worthless bulls," but this 

 is merely a matter of opinion. The fact remains that they were bulls 

 of breeding age and that they were sui)ertluous or they would not have 

 been in the drive. That Polo"fina rookery was fringed with idle bulls 

 in 1890 as at the present time is abundantly shown by this and by Mr. 

 Elliott's earlier statement, under date of June 25, that a large number 

 of unoccupied bulls were sleeping on the sands of Polovina. 



Page 396: The picture here drawn of the terrible effect of driving on 

 the cows is very forcible and graphic. The only objection to it is that 

 cows were never driven. It, therefore, has no relevancy. The descrip- 

 tion given of the way in which the bachelors were watched for and 

 hustled off' to the killing field before they had " become even acquainted 

 with terra flrma" is not warranted by the facts. By reference to the 

 recorded killings given on page 532 of this report we find, for example, 

 that Ileef rookery was driven on the 6th of June: it rested until the 

 11th; was driven again on the 16th; again on the 20th; still again on 

 the 24th, on the 28th, and on July 1, 5, 10, 14, and 19. If we contrast 

 this sort of driving with that of 1873, for example, we find Eeef driven 

 on June 3, 6, 11, 16, 26, etc. ; in 1874 it was driven on June 3, 8, 11, 15, 

 26, etc. Wherever any statement made by Mr. Elliott is tried by the 



