160 REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 



624. Oil a, consuItatioQ with the members of the Sealers' Association 

 of Victoria, comprising owners of sealing- vessels and sealing captains, 

 they called special attention and invited inquiry into the matter of the 

 number lost. They explained that when the seals sink after being 

 killed, as they often do, they sink slowly " on a slant," so that it is 

 usually quite easy to gatf them. They further affirmed that the result 

 of the sealing iu 1891 was, like that in former years, to show that the 

 loss from this cause averaged below 6 per cent. 



025. The captain of the " Eliza Edwards," interviewed at Vancouver, 

 stated, as the result of his experience, that sealing must be learnt like 

 any other business. That '' green hands" might lose as nuu'h as 25 per 

 cent, of the seals shot, but that with experienced hunters the loss is 



very small. It might possibly amount to 5 per cent. 

 107 626. The information on this point, gathered from native 



sources, has already been referred to in connection with the 

 description of the native modes of hunting, but may here be recapitu- 

 lated. 



Aleut hunters, questioned at Unalaska, say that they never lose a 

 seal if killed, whether shot or speared. Indians of Sitka, when hunt- 

 ing fur-seals, state that they lose sometimes one, sometimes two, out of 

 ten shot. Haida Indians, of Queen Charlotte Islands, state that they 

 very seldom lose seals shot at. 



Mr. A. Mackenzie, long familiar with the Haida Indians, says that a 

 very small proportion of the seals fired at by them are lost — " very sel- 

 dom," "very few indeed." "Some canoes do not lose a single seal the 

 whole season." 



Mr. li. H. Hall, of the Hudson's Bay Company, and equally familiar 

 with Ihe Haida and other Indians of the coast, said that "an Indian 

 killing or severely wounding a seal is pretty safe to get it." 



Mr. R. Cunningham, of Port Essington, believes that the Tshimsians 

 may lose as many, as one in live seals shot. The Makah Indians, of 

 Cape Flattery, informed us that when they speared the seals they prac- 

 tically lost none, but that when shot, a few were lost. In taking fifty 

 seals they might lose one or two, but sometimes would lose none. 



627. The statements given above are of course all of a general charac- 

 ter, and open to the objections which may be urged against such state- 

 ments. Those referring to the native loss in hunting, whether derived 

 from the natives themselves or quoted from Messrs. Mackenzie, Hall, 

 and Cunningham, are entirely removed from any suspicion of self- 

 interest. It has been endeavoured, however, still further to elucidate 

 the question here considered by tabulating all the well-authenticated 

 statements referring to the actual numbers of fur-seals shot, and the 

 proportion lost. These, it will be observed, record the actual numerical 

 loss of seals shot and not secured, by over twenty different hunters in 

 various years, the whole number of seals thus accounted for numbering 

 nearly 10,000. Some of these statements have already been published, 

 while others are those obtained in the course of our own inquiries. The 

 tables given below shoAv the results of this method of treatment, and are 

 believed to afford evidence of a very high class, directly referring to the 

 question under discussion. 



