ALONG THE COAST. 291 



Within the last five or six years the seals are Watkins, p. 395 

 becoming' fewer and (ewer, and are wild and shy 

 and very hard to catch. 



Last year there were fewer than ever before. This season the natives 

 caught about one-half as many as last. In his 

 opinion the seals will soon be exterminated, and Weckenunesch, p. 272. 

 in three years there will be no more sealing. 



Until about eight years ago I used to catch seals in the Straits of 

 San Juan de Fuca, but for the last two or three 

 years they have been so scarce in the straits that Wispoo,p. 396. 

 we do not try to hunt them any more. 



Seal have become very scarce around Prince of BMy Yeltachy, p. 302. 

 Wales Island since the white men began hunting 

 them in schooners. 



The Indians are obliged to go a long way now tor seal. I have been 

 out three times this year and have only killed one seal, and only saw 

 two or three this season. 



Seals are much scarcer now than they used to be six or eight years 

 ago. They used to go ten or fifteen in a bunch, 

 but now we seldom see more than two or three Thos. Zolnoks,p. 398. 

 together. 



CAUSE. 



LACK OF MALE LIFE NOT THE CAUSE. 



Page 172 of The Case. 



The abundance of male life for service upon the rookeries was evi- 

 denced by the number of young bulls which con- 

 tinually sought lodgment upon the breeding J. Stanley Brown, p. 11. 

 grounds. 



It is highly improbable that the rookeries have ever sustained any 

 injury from insufficient service on the part of the males, for any male 

 that did not possess sufficient vitality for sustained potency would in- 

 evitably be deprived of his harem by either his neighbor or some lusty 

 young aspirant, and this dispossession would be rendered the more cer- 

 tain by the disloyalty of his consorts. 



The seal being polygamous in habit, each male being able to pro- 

 vide for a harem averaging twenty or thirty mem- 

 bers, and the proportion of male to female born J- Stanley Brown, p. 18. 

 being equal, there must inevitably be left a reserve 



of young immature males, the death of a certain proportion of which 

 could not in any way affect the annual supply coming from the breed- 

 ing grounds. These conditions existing, the Government has permit- 

 ted the taking, with three exceptions, up to 1890, of a quota of about 



