282 ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



them were females. Most of the females killed have unborn pups or 

 werecows in the milk. They did not kill any on the Island because they 

 never went in close enough, lie testifies positively that " we," mean- 

 ing his companions and himself on the Charles Wilson, "killed females 

 giving milk more than 100 miles from the seal islands. Most of the 

 seals sank or dove out of sight when killed or wounded, and a great 

 many of them we could not get." On one occasion he got 600 seals. 

 He does not know whether it was on the American side or not. They 

 were almost all females, lie noticed when he skinned them that they 

 were females in milk, as the milk would run from their breasts on to 

 the decks. He concurs with the other witnesses as to the diminution 

 in the number of seals. 



Norman Hodgson (ibid., p. 366) observed nursing coirs from 60 to 80 

 miles from the Pribilof Islands, where they were ranging to feed. 



I do not think it possible for fur-seals to breed or copulate in water 

 nt sea and never saw nor heard of the action taking place on a patch 

 of floating kelp. I have never seen a young fur-seal pup of the same 

 season's birth in the water at sea nor on a patch of floating kelp and 

 in fact never knew of their being born anywhere save on a rookery. 

 / have, however, cut open a gravid, eon- and taken the young one from its 

 mother's womb, afire and crying. 1 do not believe it possible for a fur- 

 seal to be successfully raised unless born and nursed on a rookery. I 

 have seen fur-seals resting on patches of floating kelp at sea, bat do 

 not believe they ever haul up for breeding purposes anywhere except 

 on rookeries. 



Chad George (ibid., p. 365) 27 year sold and a seal hunter since he was 

 a mere boy. has been engaged in the killing of seals and speared every- 

 thing that came near his boat, regardless of sex. lie had killed seals 

 200 miles from the Pribilof Islands that were full of milk. 



11. A. Grliddon (ibid., p. 210), stated that the females during the entire 

 sealing season are going and coming to and from the water for the pur- 

 pose of feeding, and in his opinion while the females are t has going to 

 and from the feeding ground and through the Aleutian passes they 

 are intercepted and shot by open sea sealers. 



Capt. E. M. Greenleaf, a resident of Victoria, British Columbia, a sea 

 faring man, holding a commission as master mariner, captured at one 

 timesixty threeseals, all of whichwere females and all were pregnant {ibid., 

 }). 324). lie was informed by conversation with Bering Sea seal hunters 

 that they killed seal cows 20 to 200 miles from the breeding grou nds, and 

 that these cows had evidently given birth at a recent time to young. 

 As to the proportions of seals tired at and killed or wounded, it is his 



