SOURCES OF SUPPLY. 543 



sons or firms, so that they can not now, from examining the books and 

 catalogues, be readily identified or separated from skins coming from 

 other southern localities, but from the year 1876 down to the present 

 time they have been so classified, and a large number have been sold 

 by deponent's firm. A statement of the skins obtained from Cape Horn 

 is hereto appended and marked Exhibit B. The number of skins de- 

 rived from this locality, as appears by that statement, fluctuated very 

 largely in number, and I am informed that the reason for such fluctua- 

 tion is that the seals from which the skins are obtained are killed 

 mostly upon land, and that the weather in that part of the world is 

 so severe that it is at times impossible to effect a landing upon or near 

 the rookeries. So far as deponent knows, there is no protection of any 

 kind for seals at Cape Horn other than that which is afforded by the 

 difficulty of landing in order to kill the seals, in consequence of the 

 heavy weather. 



III. Cape of Good Hope. — From this locality a small but steady num- 

 ber of skins have been obtained during many years last past. These 

 skins are not consigned to deponent's firm, but to other persons in Lon- 

 don whose catalogues are published, and have been examined from 

 time to time by deponent; and deponent is informed and believes from 

 such examination of catalogues that the number of skins obtained from 

 this source have been for the last few years about 5,000 per annum. 



Deponent understands that the seals from which these skins are 

 obtained are likewise killed mostly upon land, and he is also informed 

 that some regulations for the protection of seal life at the Cape of Good 

 Hope by regulating the killing of seal in that colony of the Cape of 

 Good Hope have been established by the government of the said colony, 

 but what those regulations are, if any such exist, deponent is not in a 

 position to state. 



In addition to the supplies from the above-mentioned sources, from 

 1,000 to 2,000 skins are obtained annually in Australasia, which includes 

 New Zealand. 



IV. The principal sources of supply for the market at the present 

 time, and for many years last past, are the fol- 

 lowing. Emit- Teichmamifp. 578. 



(a) What are known as the Alaska catch, 



which are the skins of male seals, killed upon St. Paul and St. Georges 

 Islands in the Bering Sea. 



(b) The Copper catch which come from the seals killed upon the 

 Eussiani slands of Copper and Bering, called the Commander Islands, 

 which are located in the Bussian part of Bering Sea, and also the Bob- 

 ben Island, in the Okhotsk Sea, all which are also the skins of male 

 seals. 



(c) The Northwest catch. These are the skins of seals caught in the 

 open North Pacific and Bering Sea. 



Deponent further says that, commercially speaking, the seal skins 

 now coming upon the markets of the world 



are obtained principally from three catches, known c. A. Williams, p. 537. 

 as the Copper, the Alaska, and the Northwest 



catches. The first includes the skins taken by the Bussian Sealskin 

 Company from the Islands of Copper and Bering, known as the Com- 

 mander Islands; also from Bobben Island in the Ohkotsk Sea. The 

 Kobben Island skins differ from those of the Commander Islands. The 

 Alaska catch includes the seals killed upon the Pribilof Islands by the 

 lessees of the United States, and the Northwest catch includes the seals 



