SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE. 281 



they were being skinned. We Lad 5 boats on board, cadi boat having a 

 hunter, boat puller, and steerer. We used shotguns and rifles. We 

 got one out of every 5 or 6 that we killed or wounded. We wounded 

 a great many that we did not get. We caught them from 10 to 50 miles 

 off the seal islands. " 



This is the sportsmanlike method of hunting seals of which the British 

 Commissioners speak in terms of undisguised admiration! 



Samuel Falconer (ibid., p. 165), deputy collector of customs in 1868 

 and 186!>, then purser on board the steamer Constantine, was also 

 in charge of St. Paul Island several years. It was a part of his 

 duty to make a very careful and full study of seal life. It was his 

 opinion that if a pup lost its mother by any accident it icould certainly 

 die by starvation. When the young seal are 6 or 8 weeks of age 

 their mothers force them into the water and teach them to swim. After 

 repeated trials the pup learns to swim, and from that time on spends a 

 great deal of time in the water, but still the greater portion of these 

 first months of its life are spent on land sleeping and nursing. 



The cow, after bringing forth her young, remains on the rookery 

 until again fertilized by the bull, which is, I believe, within two weeks. 

 After the fertilization she is allowed to go to and from the water at 

 will in search of food, which she must obtain so she can nurse her pup. 

 She goes on these feeding excursions sometimes, I believe, 40 or more 

 miles from the islands, and as she swims with great rapidity, covers the 

 distance in a short time. She may go much farther, for I have known 

 a cow to be absent from her pup for two days, leaving it without 

 nourishment for this period. This shows how tenacious of life a young 

 seal is, and how long it can live without sustenance of any sort. The 

 3-year-old male has meanwhile landed on the hauling ground and 

 is now of the most available age to kill for his pelt. 



John Fratis (ibid., p. 108) was of opinion that the cows were killed 

 by the hunters when they go out in the sea to feed, and the pups are 

 left to die and do die on the islands. He says: 



The pups are born soon after the arrival of the cows, and they are 

 helpless and cau not swim, and they would drown if put into the water. 

 The pups have no sustenance except what the cows furnish, and no 

 cow suckles any pup but her own. The pups would suck any cow if 

 the cow would let them. 



After the pup is a few days old the cote goes into the sea to feed, and at 

 first she will only stay away for a few hours, but as the pup grows 

 stronger she will stay away more and more until she will sometimes be 

 away for a week. 



William Frazer gives his experience as a sealer. The hunters use 

 shotguns, he says (ibid., p. 427), and got about one out of every six they 

 shot at or killed, and sometimes they got none. The great majority of 



