10 THE DEPONENTS AND THEIR EXPERIENCE. 



the islands as such agent from that time during the sealing seasons 

 from 1872 to 1877, inclusive, and passed three winters there, namely, 

 those of 1872, 1874, and 1876. Since the year 1877 I have never visited 

 the seal islands, and have been in retirement at Mattapoisett aforesaid. 

 During these years I was upon the islands I made a most careful study 

 of seal life thereon, and examined and inquired of the natives in rela- 

 tion to the habits and former conditions of the fur-seals. 



Capt. James W. Budington, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I 

 m T , am 53 years of age, a resident of Groton, Conn., 



^James w. hudington,p. an d a master mariner. Since 1871 1 have made sev- 

 eral voyages to the southern hemisphere for the 

 purpose of seal hunting, and am thoroughly acquainted with the islands 

 and coasts about Cape Horn and in the southern Atlantic Oeean where 

 fur-seals have been taken. I also studied, as far as I was able, the 

 habits and conditions of the fur-seal of the southern seas. 



Personally appeared before me Ruth Burdukofski, who, being duly 

 sworn, deposes and says: I am 64 years of age, a 

 t>.206 '' native Aieut ' being born on Bering Island, and do 



' now reside, and have since the age of 17 resided, 



at Unalaska. In my early life, during the time of the Russian- Ameri- 

 can Company, I hunted seals in my bidarka in and off the bays of Un- 

 alaska Island. 



Karp Buterin, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am 39 years of 



age, and I was born on St. Paul Island, Alaska, 



Karp Buterin, p. 102. and I have always lived here. I have a practical 



knowledge of the fur-seal industry as it is done on 



St. Paul Island, for I have been working at it all of my life since I was 



able to work. I have driven seals and clubbed and skinned them; I 



have had charge of the drives and I have been second chief for four 



years, and I am head chief now, being elected in 1891. 



Stephen N. Buynitsky, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am a 

 Russian by birth and am 60 years of age. I grad- 

 S. N. Buynitsky, p. 20. uated from the Imperial Lyceum at St. Peters- 

 burg, an institution for the nobility. Am now a 

 resident of the city of Washington. I was detailed by the United States 

 Treasury Department to take charge of St. George Island, in Bering 

 Sea, during the summer of 1870; I returned to the United States in the 

 fall of that year. The following season I was appointed to take charge 

 of both St. Paul and St. George islands. I arrived at the islands in 

 July, 1871, and remained there till the latter part of April, 1872. Dur- 

 ing my stay on the islands I made careful examination into the habits 

 and nature of the seal, and also read and studied the records left by the 

 Russian Government in relation to the Pribilof Islands. 



Carlos G. Calkins, being duly sworn, deposes and saifh: I am a lieu- 

 tenant in the U. S. Navy, and have made three 

 C. G. Calkins, p. 104. cruises into Alaskan waters, as follows, viz, in the 

 year 1890, about the Bristol Bay region and the 

 Aleutian Islands as far west as Umnak; in the year 1891, to the Pribi- 

 lof Islands, in Bering Sea; and in the year 1892, from Kadiak Island 

 to Prince William Sound, going as far into Cooks Inlet as Coal Bay. 



