100 THE ALASKAN SEAL, HERD. 



The Pribilof herd does not mingle with the herd located on the Com- 

 mander Islands. This I know from the fact that the herd goes east- 

 ward after entering the Pacific Ocean, and from 

 Chas. Bryant, p. 4. questioning natives and half breeds, who had re- 

 sided in Kamchatka as employes of the Russian 

 Fur Company, I learned that the Commander herd on leaving their 

 islands go southwestward into the Okhotsk Sea and the waters to the 

 southward of it and winter there. This fact was further verified by 

 whalers who find them there in the early spring. 



Deponent is further of the opinion, from his long observation and 



handling of the skins of the several catches, that 



Alfred Fraser, p. 558. the skins of the Alaska and Copper catches are 



readily distinguishable from each other, and that 



the herds from which such skins are obtained do not in fact intermingle 



with each other, because the skins classified under the head of Copper 



catch are not found among the consignments of skins received from the 



Alaska catch, and vice versa. 



In the months of October and November, after a blow from the 

 northeast, a few scattering gray pups are occasion- 



Kassian Gorloi, p. 212. ally seen in groups of two and three. They pass 

 from Bering Sea into the Pacific, and do not linger 

 about this region. I have killed a few of these pups in the passes of 

 Atka and Amlia islands for food, and did not find them difficult to ap- 

 proach in bidarka. I killed ten in one season, about the year 1868, 

 using a spear, and never lost one struck, although they do not float 

 long after being killed, usually less than five minutes. We find but 

 few" nowadays, and I think there are less fur-seals than there were 

 formerly. I do not know the reason for it. I have never seen an old 

 bull or a full-grown fur-seal about these islands. I do not know through 

 what passes the seal herds move to and from the Bering Sea, nor the 

 time. Schooners have occasionally been seen about this region in the 

 spring, but they never stayed long, and I do not think they got any 

 skins. 



I think the fur-seal herds of the Commander an 1 Pribilof islands 

 are separate bodies of the fur-seal species, whose, 

 Charles J. Hague, p. 207. numbers do not mingle with each other. In the 

 latter part of September of 18G7, in the brig Ken- 

 tucky, making passage between Petropaulowski and Kadiak, I ob- 

 served the Commander Islands seal herd on its way from the rookeries. 

 They moved in a compact mass or school, after the maimer of herring, 

 and were making a westerly course towards the Kurile Islands. 



Q. In your opinion do the seals on the Russian side intermingle with 



those on the Pacific side or are they a separate 



H.Harmsen,p.4A3. herd? — A. No, sir; they do not come over this 



way. They are not a different breed, but they 



keep over by themselves! At least I don't think so. They follow their 



own stream along there. There is so much water there where there are 



seals, and so much where there are not. They are by themselves. 



Q. In your opinion, do the seals on the Russian side intermingle 

 with those on the Pacific side or are they a 



Gustace Isaacson, y. 440. separate herd? — A. They do not intermingle 

 at all. 



