REASON PREGNANT FEMALES ARE TAKEN. 451 



a traveling seal, and the larger proportion of loss to the schooner, dur- 

 ing the greater part of the sealing season, and more particularly in the 

 Bering Sea, there are few males to he found in the water. 



No other evidence of this is needed than the observation of the gen- 

 tlemen who spend the season on the Pribilof Islands and who all agree 

 in reporting that the male seals remain there, while the females, as 

 soon as they are delivered of their young, go forth in search of food. 

 The male seal seldom sleeps in the water during the sealing season. 

 When the northward migration begins, in March, the male seals pursue 

 their way with all diligence to the rookeries, and arrive there about 

 thirty days ahead of the coming of the female seals. It must be plain 

 from this that the opportunities for slaying male seals that are travel- 

 ing rapidily through the water must be far less than for killing female 

 seals, who, making their way leisurely, feeding as they go, and resting 

 frequently because they are heavy with pup, offer a far more extensive 

 target to the rifle of the hunter. 



The Indians with whom I conversed in British Columbia, and who 

 had had a varied and extensive experience of sealing, not only as seal 

 hunters for schooners, but when out in search of food, all declared, 

 that the male seal seldom ate and never slept while on his way to the 

 rookeries. They declared that as with the salmon when on its way to 

 the spawning grounds, they had never found food in the stomach of the 

 few male seals they had managed to capture. 



So far as I was able to learn, the terms "sleeper" and "traveler" as 

 applied to seals, had their origin among the Indians. They declared, 

 and in that they are borne out by all of the white hunters, that the 

 seal, when it is desirous of resting in the water, inflates a bladder in its 

 body, which keeps it afloat. Whether this be so or not, makes no dif- 

 ference, but the fact is, that almost the only way the Indians have of 

 killing seals is by paddling noiselessly up to the sleeping animal as it 

 floats on the water, and spearing it. 



Many of the schooners employ Indian hunters, who work much cheaper 

 than the whites, who only use the spear, and never attempt to kill a 

 traveling seal. 



The reports of their catches show that all of their captures are fe- 

 males. It could not well be otherwise, for the male seals, in making 

 their way to the rookeries, take a more northerly course, and go with 

 all speed, while the females move towards the mouth of the Columbia, 

 and other large fishing banks, following the runs of fish, or idly wait- 

 ing until nature tells them that the period of gestation is about ended, 

 and they then make their way to the rookeries to be delivered of their 

 pups. 



The large proportion of females killed in the North Pacific is due to 

 the fact, as I explained before, that males pursue 



their way to the hauling grounds with dispatch, t. T. Williams, p. 495. 

 while the females are more leisurely in their move- 

 ments and take frequent rests. 



They are less active, sleep more, and are more Michael Wooslcoot, p. 

 easily taken. 274. 



DESTRUCTION OF NURSING FEMALES. 

 Page 209 of The Case. 



On June 10, 1886, 1 left the Columbia Eiver, proceeding to Unalaska, 



