412 RESULTS. 



Both tlie Copper Island skins and the Alaska skins are almost exclu 

 sively the skins of male seals, and the difference 



Henry Poland, j>.57l. between the skin of a male seal and a female seal 

 of adult age can be as readily seen as between the 

 skins of different sexes of other animals. That the Northwest skins 

 are, in turn, distinguishable from the Copper Island and Alaska skins, 

 first, by reason of the fact that a very Luge proportion of the adult 

 skins are obviously the skins of female animals; second, because they 

 are all pierced with a spear or harpoon or shot, in consequence of being 

 killed in open sea, and not, as in the case of Copper Island and Alaska 

 skins, being killed upon land by clubs; third, because the Northwest 

 skins are cured upon vessels by the crews of which they are killed, upon 

 which there are not the same facilities for flaying or salting the skins 

 as there are upon land, where the Copper and Alaska skins are flayed 

 and salted. 



The Japanese skins, which, I think, are now included in the North- 

 west catch, are distinguishable, from the other skins of the Northwest 

 catch by being yellower in color, having a much shorter pile, because 

 they are salted with fine salt, and have plenty of blubber on the pelt. 

 That the skins purchased by deponent's firm are handed over by it to 

 what are called dressers and dyers, for the purpose of being dressed 

 and dyed. 



The skins taken in the North Pacific and Bering Sea by hunters are 

 of the same nature as those taken on the Pribilof 



Chas. TV. Price, p. 321. Islands, but are of less value, owing to the fact 

 that they are taken at all seasons of the year. 

 Part of them are stagy, some are full of holes from being shot, and the 

 fur on the belly of quite a number of the female seals giving milk is of 

 little value. I have handled and examined many thousands of skins 

 purchased from hunters who had taken them along the coast and in 

 Bering Sea. Fully 80 per cent of them were females, which skins were 

 readily distinguishable. 



That the differences between the skins of the adult male seals and 



the adult female seals are as marked as the dif- 



Geo. Rice, p. 573. ferences between the skins of the two sexes of 



other animals, and that in the Northwest catch 



from 85 to 90 per cent of the skins are of the female animal. 



Deponent does not mean to state that these figures are mathemat- 

 ically accurate, but they are, in his judgment, approximately exact. 



I should estimate the proportion of female skins included within the 

 Northwest catch at at least 75 per cent, and I 



JFm. C. B. stamp, p. snou i(j no t be surprised nor feel inclined to con- 

 tradict an estimate of upwards of 90 per cent. 

 My sorter, who actually handles the skins, estimates the number of 

 female skins in the Northwest catch at 90 per cent. 



One means of distinguishing the skins of the Northwest catch from 

 those of the other catches is the fact that they are pierced with shot or 

 spear holes, having been killed in the open sea, and not, as in the case 

 of the Copper and Alaska catches, killed upon land, with clubs. 



The number of Japanese skins averages, deponent should say, about 

 5,000 a year, although there is a good deal of fluc- 



Emil Teiehmann, p. 581. tuation in the quantity from year to year, and de- 

 ponent says that, like the other skins included in 



