DESTRUCTION OF NURSING FEMALES. 455 



I have hunted seals in the Bering Sea for one season only. I went 

 there in the schooner James G. Swan in 1889. 

 Most of the seals that we captured there that j e ff Davis, p. 384. 

 season were cows giving milk. I do not know 

 where their pups were. I never caught any gray pups in the sea. 



The proportion of female seals killed in the Bering Sea is equally 

 large, but the destruction to seal life is much 



greater, owing to the fact that when a mother James R. Douglass p. 

 seal is killed her sucking pup left at the rookery 420. 

 also perishes. Impregnation having also taken 



place before she left the rookery in search of food, the foetus of the 

 next year's birth is likewise destroyed. 



We left San Francisco and fished up the coast until we entered the 

 Bering Sea, in July, and sealed about the seea until 

 we were driven off by the revenue-cutter Gorwin. Peter Duffy, p. 421. 

 From there we went to the Copper Islands. Our 



whole catch amounted to 900 skins, and we killed most of them with rifles. 

 We only got about one out of eight that we shot at, and they were 

 most all females giving milk or in pup. When we cut the hide off you 

 could see the milk running from the breasts of the seals. The second 

 year we got over 1,300 skins; some of them were cows with pups in 

 them, and most all the rest were cows giving milk, and some of the 

 latter we killed as far from the rookeries as Unimak Pass. 



Mostly all the females killed has unborn pups or were cows giving 

 milk. We did not kill any on the islands. We William Frazer p. 427 

 never went in close enough. * * * 



The next trip was on the G. G. White That trip we entered the 

 Bering Sea on the Russian side, and hunted all the coast of Japan to 

 the Bering Sea. I do not know if we were on the American side or not. 

 We got about 600 seals on that trip. They were nearly all females. I 

 noticed when we skinned them that they were females in milk, as the 

 milk would run from their breasts on to the decks. 



We entered the Bering Sea about April and we got 795 in there, the 

 largest part of which were mother seals in milk. 

 When we were skinning them the milk would John Fyfe, p. 429. 

 run on the deck. 



I know that fully 75 per cent of those we caught Thos. Gibson, p. 432. 

 in the Bering Sea were cows in milk. 



We entered the Bering Sea on the 13th July, through the Unimak 

 Pass, and captured between 900 and 1,000 seals 

 therein, most of which were females in milk. Arthur Griffin, p. 325. 



We entered the sea on July 12, through Una- 

 mak Pass, and captured about 800 seals in those waters, about 90 per 

 cent of which were females in milk. 



My own observation and the information obtained from seal hunters 

 convince me that fully 90 per cent of the seals 

 found swimming in the Bering Sea during the m. A. Healy, p. 28. 

 breeding season are females in search of food, and 

 their slaughter results in the destruction of her young by starvation. 



