410 CALLORHINUS URSINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. 



pany are taking these animals for their skins, the natives sub- 

 sist on the flesh of the animals so killed. When the company 

 have obtained their full quota their control of the killing ceases, 

 the Treasury agent directing the killing for food. From about 

 the end of July until the Seals leave the island, there are re- 

 quired for the subsistence of the natives three hundred ani- 

 mals per week. Care is taken in killing for this purpose to- 

 take such animals as will yield skins acceptable by the company 

 as a part of the. next year's quota, but during the shedding 

 season the skins are valueless. As this period lasts from the 

 middle of August to October, the number of skins so lost is 

 about two thousand. Besides this loss, in November, before 

 the young Seals leave the islands for the winter, about 8,000 

 four-and-a-half-months-old young males are taken for a supply 

 of blubber and Seal-flesh for use in winter while the Seals are 

 absent from the islands. This is necessary, because at this sea- 

 son the older Seals that have been so long ashore as to have 

 become quite thin and poor, yield little blubber, while their 

 flesh is tough and stringy. The blubber of the nursing Seals, 

 is quite different from that of the older Seals, being finer in 

 texture and firmer, with less proportion of oil, and is far prefer- 

 able for food-purposes. The carcasses of these young Seals are 

 dressed and suspended on poles in the open air, and are kept 

 fresh nearly all winter by being frozen. It will be seen by this^ 

 that the total number of animals killed annually for all purposes 

 is 110,000. This, in the six years that have elapsed since the 

 beginning of the lease, amounts to a total of 600,000 male Seals. 

 Allowing the sexes to be produced in equal numbers (and so- 

 far as can be judged this appears to be the fact), there have 

 been added to the original stock of breeding females 000,000 

 over the number existing at the beginning of the lease ; and 

 this agrees very nearly with the increased area now occujiied 

 by them, which shows a total of not much less than 1,800,000> 

 breeding females. 



"Winter Eesoets and Habits while absent from the. 

 Islands. Of the life of these animals while absent from the 

 islands but little is known, nor is it known where their princi- 

 pal feeding-grounds are. We know that the greater jiart pass 

 through Ounimak and Aidvootan Straits, going east in autumn 

 and west in spring; and that in ]3ecember, about six weeks- 

 after they leave the islands, fishing parties of Indians at Sitk'i, 



