90 REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 



309. Bryant, after describing tlie relaxation in watclifnlness of tlie 

 male after impregnation has been accomplislied, says of the female: 

 ''From that time she lies either sleeping near her yonng, or spends her 

 time either Jloatinff or playing in the icater near the shore, returning occa- 

 sionally to suckle her pup."* 



Elliott writes in a similar strain of the same period. The females, 

 he says, " lie idly out in the rollers, ever and anon turning over 

 and over, scratching their backs and sides with their hind flippers." t 

 Elsewhere he states that the mother, he thinks, nurses her pup every 

 two or three days, but adds, "In this I am very likely mistaken."^ 

 Again, he speaks of a mother coming up from the sea. "where she has 

 been to wash and perhaps to feed for the last day or two."§ In another 

 reference, he says: " Soon after the birth of their young they leave it 

 on the ground and go to the sea for food, returning perhaps tomorrow, 

 perhaps later, even not for several days in fact, to again suckle and 

 nourish it, having in the meantime sped far off to distant feeding 

 banks," «&c.|| 



310. In the Report on the Fur-seal Fisheries of Alaska (1889),^ Mr. 

 W. B. Taylor states that the cows go out every day for food to a distance 

 of 10 or 15 miles, or even further. 



Mr. T. F. Eyan states that the "main feeding grounds of the seal 

 during the summer stay upon the islands, and to which the cows are 

 continually going and coming, are to be found 40 to 70 miles south of 

 St. George Island." 



Mr. G. R. Tingle, in the same Report, says that the seals probably go 

 20 miles out in some cases in search of food. 



311. Such are the more definite references of a published kind which 

 we have been able to find on this important point in seal life, and they 

 are sufficient to show that very little has heretofore been known on the 

 subject, though much has been taken for granted. 



312. The following is a summary of the evidence personally obtained 

 in 1891 from those supposed to be most capable of giving an opinion 

 on the subject: 



Mr. G. R. Tingle stated that he believed seals from St. George went 

 to feed, for the most part, about 30 to 40 miles to the southward or 

 south-eastward of that island. From St. Paul he was not aware that 



they went in any particular direction. 

 56 Mr. J. C. Redpath did not know of any special place or places 



to which the seals go to food, but believed that the females go 

 from 10 to 15 miles from the islands for that purpose. 



Mr. D. Webster thinks that seals go from St. George Island, when 

 feeding in the autumn, about CO miles southward; he believes that there 

 is a favourite feeding ground in this vicinity, because he has seen 

 numerous seals there when on his way from the islands to Ounalaska. 



Mr. Fowler stated that he believed there was a favourite feeding 

 ground of the seals about 30 miles off north east point of St. Paul 

 Island. This was not from personal knowledge, but depended on state- 

 ments that seals had been seen in abundance there. 



Natives of St. Paul informed us that the females from the rookeries 

 went only 3 or 4 miles to sea to feed, always returning to their young 



*" Monograph of North American Pinnipeds," p. 386. 

 tibid., p. 361. 



t United States Census Report, p. 38. 

 § Ibid., p. 39. 

 !|Ibid.,p. 35. 



11 House of Representatives, Report No. 3883, 50th Congress, 2nd Session. The 

 italics in the above-cited passages are our own. 



