280 ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Pacific and Bering Sea; had gone to the seal islands in the latter sea 

 over twenty years ago, and been there many limes subsequently while 

 in the employ of the Government. He testifies that his observation 

 and information agreed with that of many other witnesses. He says: 



My information and observation is that a very large proportion of 

 those killed along the coast and at sea from Oregon to the Aleutian 

 Islands are female seals with pups; I think not less than 95 per cent. 

 The proportion of female seals killed in the Bering Sea is equally large, 

 but the destruction to seal life is much greater owing to the fact that 

 when a mother seal is killed her suckling pup left at the rookery also 

 perishes. Impregnation having also taken place before she left the 

 rookery in search of food, the foetus of the next year's birth is likewise 

 destroyed. I also found t\i\\t females after giving birth to their young at 

 the rookeries seek the codfish hanks at various points at a distance of from 

 40 t<> 125 miles from the islands for food, and are frequently absent one 

 or more days at a time, when they return to find their young. 



I have noticed that the females when at sea are less wild and dis- 

 trustful than the bachelor seals, and dive less quickly in the presence 

 of the hunter. After feeding plentifully or when resting after heavy 

 weather they appear to fall asleep upon the surface of the water. It is 

 then they become an easy target for the hunters. 



George Dishow, of Victoria, British Columbia, was by occupation a 

 seal hunter and pursued that business six years (ibid., p. 323. 



I use a shotgun exclusively for taking seal. Old hunters lose but very 

 few seals, but beginners lose a great many. I use the Parker shotgun. A 

 large proportion of all seals taken are females with pup. A very few 

 yearlings are taken. I never examined them as to sex. But very few 

 old bulls are taken, but five being taken out of a total of 900 seals 

 taken by my schooner. Use no discrimination in killing seal, but shoot 

 everything that comes near the boat in the shape of a seal. Hunters 

 shoot seal in the most exposed part of the body. Have never known 

 any pups to be born in the water, nor on the land on the coast of 

 Alaska anywhere outside of the Pribilof Islands. Have never known 

 fur-seal to haul up on the land anywhere on the coast except on the 

 Pribilof Islands. Most of the seals taken in Bering Sea are females. 

 Have taken them 70 miles from the islands that were full of milk. I think 

 a closed season should be established for breeding seal from January 

 1st to August 15th in the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea. 



George Fairchild (ibid., p. 423), made, a sealing voyage to the North 

 Pacific Sea as sailor on the Sadie Clyde, sailing from Victoria on the 

 10th of April, 188S. They went north to the Bering Sea, sealing all the 

 way up, and got 110 seals before entering the sea: 



" Most of them," he says, " were cows, nearly all of which had pups in 



them. We took some of the pups alive out of the bodies of the females. 



We entered the Bering Sea May 25, and we got 704 seals in there, the 



greater quantity of which were females with their breasts full of milk, a 



fact which I know by reason of having seen the milk flow on the deck when 



