REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 167 



Captain Dod stated that he had talceu over 600 seals in Behring Sea, 

 of which less than twenty carried youn^-, and that the schooner 



112 "Viva" in 1800 took 2,000 seals in Behring Sea, of which only 

 two were feinales with young. Captain Baker said that in 1891 



on Portlock banks he found males most abundant, consisting of young, 



medium, and a few full-grown animals. 



648. A consultation held with a number of representative pelagic 

 sealers on this particular point elicited the following general state- 

 ment, which, it is believed, is in entire accordance with the facts iu so 

 far as these are known from practical experience, as no degree of reti- 

 cence was shown iu. answering direct questions on all points involved: 



It is generally admitted that a considerable proportion of gravid 

 females are found among the seals taken in the early part of each seal- 

 ing season. Such animals are generally fallen in with in more or less 

 diffuse groups, one area of sea-surface being characterized by them, 

 another by young males or by yearlings, a circumstance which may 

 explain the rather varied proportions by sex and age of seals comprised 

 iu the catches of different vessels. After about the 20th May, or, at 

 latest, the 1st June, very few females with young are ever taken. The 

 pregnant females then begin to "bunch up," and to travel fast toward 

 Behring Sea, so that in favourable sealing w^eather (or, in other words, 

 calms and light winds) the schooners cannot keep up with them. After 

 this time, the catch consists chiefly of young males or of barren females. 



649. Behring Sea is now usually entered by the pelagic sealers 

 between the 20th June and the 1st July, and in Behring Sea the same 

 conditions hold. The gravid fenudes are well ahead of the sealers, who 

 have been working up the West Coast, and go straight to the breeding 

 islands. By the time the sealers rea<^h the sea, it is r>ractically only the 

 young males and barren, or young and non-breeding, females which 

 remain dispersed over the sea to be taken. At a later date in the sum- 

 mer, a few females in milk, and, therefore, presumably from the breed- 

 ing places on the islands, are occasionally killed, but no large number. 

 This last fact is the only one which has a direct l)earing, or establishes 

 a direct connecfion, between the economy of the breeding rookeries 

 and the hunting of legitimate pelagic sealers, as distinguished from 

 raiders on the islands, in Behring Sea. The killing of unweaned pups 

 upon the islands, together with other matters bearing on the possible 

 excursions of breeding females to sea, are fully noticed in another part 

 of this report, which should be referred to in this connection. 



650. Statements of the most contradictory kind can be quoted on the 

 subject of the composition of the catch made by the iielagic sealers. 

 Doubtless, this varies very much in different cases and in different 

 seasons, but a number of the statements met with are so extreme from 

 one point of view or the other, that they must be supposed to have 

 been largely coloured by interest. The single fact, already referred to, 

 that a certain number of the young males killed upon the islands are 

 found to contain pellets of shot, is sufficient to show that the catch of 

 the pelagic sealers and Indians is not practically altogether composed 

 of females, as some persons would have us believe. The foregoing- 

 paragraphs give a general statement of the case, without taking such 

 extreme views on either side into account. It may be added, however, 

 that the excessive killing of young males on the breeding islands may 

 probably, by changing the proportion normally existing between the 

 sexes, have had the result of directly increasing the number of females 

 found and killed at sea in late years. This point is elsewhere treated 

 at greater length. 



