262 SEAL LIKE ON THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 



and to overestimate their success in securing skins of seals shot at. 

 The reason for that was that I was about to engage in sealing enter- 

 prises and that I was making inquiries for the purpose of ascertaining 

 their skill as hunters, with a view to engaging them. The practice in 

 British Columbia is to pay the best hunters the highest rate per skin. 

 Men who could shoot fairly well, but who use a shotgun, could be 

 secured for a sealing voyage from $1 to $1.50 per skin, while hunters 

 who shot with a rifle and were of recognized skill in some instances 

 were paid as high as $_J.50 per skin, and, generally speaking, as high 

 as &2 per skin. The reason for this is obvious to those who have inter- 

 ested themselves in the sealing business. A seal killed with buckshot 

 is so much punctured frequently that the pelt is of lesser value. It is 

 not profitable for schooners to engage as hunters men who miss their 

 chances of killing the seals and blaze away indiscriminately, with small 

 results. Even though the hunter is only paid for the skin he recovers, 

 the loss to the vessel by his failure to kill when an opportunity offers 

 is equivalent to the profit it would have made on the skin if secured. 

 For these reasons and on account of the general proneness of men who 

 consider themselves experts in the use of any weapon to brag, the seal 

 hunters of British Columbia, as a class, grossly exaggerate the percent- 

 age of skins they recover to the number of seals aimed at, wounded, or 

 killed. (Theo. T. Williams.) 



In attempting to ascertain exactly the number of seals killed and lost 

 by the Bering Sea hunters, I found a wide divergence of statement. It 

 is greatly to the advantage of the seal hunter to have the reputation of 

 losing but few seals. He is paid by the skin, and the more he catches 

 the greater his remuneration; but that is not all. The hunter with the 

 best reputation as a sure catcher is in the greatest demand, can secure 

 employment in the best schooner, and the largest sum of advance 

 money. Besides self-interest, there comes vanity to urge the hunter 

 to make the biggest reputation possible for himself. To use a common 

 expression, the seal hunters all brag about their snreness of aim. The 

 best shots use a rifle and fire at a range of from 50 to 11*5 yards. The 

 poorer shots depend on a shotgun loaded with buckshot, and will fire 

 at a seal up to 50 yards away. The Indian hunters use spears, and 

 paddle noiselessly up to the sleeping seal to plunge the spear in its 

 shoulder. They never attempt to spear a seal that is awake. An 

 Indian hunter will paddle in among a lot of " sleepers" and spear them 

 one after the other, while a white hunter, who uses firearms, alarms 

 every seal in the neighborhood at the first discharge. The Indians lose 

 about one-third of all they spear, either from failure to kill when they 

 strike or because the dead seal sinks too quickly for them to secure it. 

 The white hunters do not get one-half of all they shoot. Some hunters 

 are very careful shots and will not fire unless the seal is well within 

 range, but the seal is likely to sink before the boat can get to it, or if 

 wounded, will dive like a flash to get away. A number of hunters have 

 boasted that they secure 95 seals for 100 shots, and some have made 

 affidavits of even more wonderful exploits. They presume too much 

 on public ignorance and credulity. (Theo. T. Williams.) 



Fortunately, it is not necessary to depend on the statements of the seal 

 hunters. I secured access to the ship accounts of several sealers, and 

 found that in every case the consumption of ammunition showed more 

 than ten cartridges used for every seal skin captured. I spent consid- 

 erable time among the Siwash Indian sealers, and, while they brag of 

 their individual prowess, they admitted a loss of 30 per cent at least. 



