176 SEAL LIFE ON THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 



At that time (1805) he made his purchases from the Indians on the 

 western coast of the American continent, who offered to him only the 

 skins of female seals; that the price he originally paid for them was as 

 low as 50 cents per skin; that he offered the Indians a much higher 

 price for male skins, and was told by them that the male seals could 

 not be caught, and that many Indians whom he has personally seen 

 kill seals, and from whom he has bought skins, have told him that male 

 seals and the young cows were too active to be caught, and that it was 

 only the female seals heavy with young which they could catch. The 

 males, for instance, as deponent was told by the seal hunters, come up 

 to the surface of the water after diving often as much as a mile from 

 the place they went down, whereas the females can, when pregnant, 

 hardly dive at all. 



Deponent says that, from his own observation of live seals during 

 many years, and from his personal inspection of the skins, he knows 

 the difference between the skin of a female seal and a male seal to be 

 very marked, and that the two are easily distinguishable. The skin of 

 a female shows the marks of the breasts, about which there is no fur. 

 The belly of the female seal is barren of fur also, whereas on a male the 

 fur is thick and evenly distributed. The female seal has a much nar- 

 rower head than the male seal, and this difference is apparent in the 

 skins; also that the differences between the male and female seals 7 skins 

 are marked; that there is now and always has been a difference in the 

 price of the two from 300 to 500 per cent. For example, at the last sales 

 in London, on the 22d day of February, 1892, there were sold 30,000 

 female skins at a price of 40 shillings apiece, and 13,000 male seals at a 

 price of 130 shillings apiece, on an average. 



Second. That from the year 1864 down to the present day deponent 

 or his firm have been large purchasers of seal skins on the western 

 coast of America from the Indians and residents on the British coast; 

 and deponent believes that he has handled nearly three-fourths of the 

 catch from that time down to the present. That during the whole of 

 this period he has purchased from 30,000 to 40,000 seal skins a year, and 

 that he has personally inspected and physically handled the most of the 

 skins so bought by him or his firm. 



That from the year 1880 he has been in the habit of buying skins 

 from American and English vessels, engaged in what is now known as 

 poaching, and that he has personally inspected every cargo bought, and 

 seen unloaded from the poaching vessels, and subsequently seen and 

 superintended the unpacking of the same in his own warehouse; that 

 the most of the skins mentioned as purchased by him have been bought 

 from the poaching vessels, and that of the skins so bought from the 

 vessels known as poachers deponent says that at least 90 per cent of 

 the total number of skins were those of female seals, and that the skins 

 of male seals found among those cargoes were the skins of very small 

 animals, not exceeding 2 years of age; and, further, that the age of the 

 seal may be told accurately from the size of its skin. 



Third. That the skins bought at Victoria from the poaching vessels 

 are shipped by him largely to the firm of 0. M. Lampson & Co., in Lon- 

 don, who are the largest sellers of skins in the world, and the agents 

 of deponent's firm; that he has been through the establishment of 

 O. M. Lampson & Co., in London, very frequently; that he has fre- 

 quently heard stated by the superintendent thereof that the great major- 

 ity of the skins received by them from what is called the u North west 

 catch" that is, the northwest coast of Victoria are the skins of seals 

 caught by vessels in the open Pacific or the Bering Sea, and that a 



