REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 



115 



a number of sealing- captains and liunters, to tlie effect tliat the general 

 ex])erience was that seals were equally or more abundant at sea this 

 year than they had been in former years. 



407. The actual success of individual sealing-vessels of course depends 

 so largely upon the good fortune or good judgment which may enable 

 them to fall in with and follow considerable bodies of seals, as well as 

 on the weather ex])erienced, that the tigures representing the catch, 

 comi)ared to the boats or whole number of men employed, constitute a 

 more trustworthy criterion tbau any such general statements. 



74 Comparison helwcen the number of Boats and Men employed in the Fur-seal Fishery 

 and the nuvibvr of Seals taken. {Only Vessels sail iny from Victor la are included.) 



* In 1891, nearly all the scbooiiers were warned out of Beliriug Sea some weeks befoie the expiry of 

 the ordinary hunliug season. ' 



408. In considering the general bearings of the above statements 

 obtained from ])elagic sealers, and of the numerical facts derived from 

 an analysis of their catch, it must be remembered that the vessels 

 engaged in sealing are able to carry on their work wherever the seals 

 may be Ibuml, and that the tendency of the seal to keep further from 

 the shores does not materially affect their success. It is otherwise with 

 the inde])endent native hunters, who employ the shore as their base of 

 operations, and it is therefore chietiy from the observations made by 

 these men that an idea can be formed of the recent changes in habits 

 of the seals. It must be noted here, however, before quoting this par- 

 ticular evidence, that circumstances of wind and weather, as well as 

 the abundance or otherwise of suitable food for the seals, have a great 

 effect locally on the numbers of seals of Avhich the natives are cogni- 

 zant, and that it is, therefore, rather on the general tenor of their 

 observations than on any isolated notes that broad conclusions may be 

 safely based. 



409. In the Aleutian Islands, the natives questioned at Ounalaska 

 began by stating that the number varied much from year to year, but 

 the oldest among the hunters said that it had been about the same for 

 the past five or six years. 



410. At Kadiak Island, Mr. Washburn, the local agent of the Alaska 

 Commercial Company, expressed the opinion that seals were four times 

 more numerous in the vicinity of the shores of that island live years 

 ago than at present, and that the number seen there had decreased 

 notably within the last two years. The seals did not now come in to 

 the shores as before, and did not enter Prince William Sound in large 

 numbers as they had previously done, but remained at sea in the 

 neighbourhood of the Portlock and other banks. 



411. The same gentleman informed us of the interesting fact, related 

 by the natives of Kadiak, that one season, now many years ago, several 

 hundred fur-seals had formed a breeding rookery on one of the islands 

 in Shelikott' Strait, but that this attempt had not been continued. In 

 June or July 1891, one recently born seal pup had been seen with its 

 mother near the shore, about 20 miles to the west of St. Paul on 

 Kadiak Island. This, however, was the only instance of the kind he 

 could vouch for. 



