SEX OF SALTED SKINS. 245 



fur merchant-i in London to examine the skins as thfy arrive from tbe pi-lagic seali-rs, at Jlessrs, 

 C. M. Lampsons & Sous', of 64 Queen street, in the city of Loudon, at the Hiiilson liay Company's 

 premises in Lime street, and at Messrs. Culverwell t Brooks's, at St. Mary Axe. These are the only 

 liruis to whom seal skins have been sent for sale during the last few years. I inspect them in order 

 to determine the quality and condition of the skins, and it is my liusiness to report to the merchants 

 from time to time the quality of the skins, and the merchants act on my report. From my personal 

 inspection in this way I am able to say that fully 80 per cent of the skins which havi' arrived from 

 the pelagic scalers during the last three years are the skins of female seals. Of the 135,CKX), or 

 thereabouts, of the pelagic northwest catch of 1894, fully 120,000 came under my notice and were 

 examined by me; and of the 102,000, or thereal)onts, of the like catch of 18'J.5, about 100.000 came 

 under my notice and were examined by me : and of the 70,000 forming the like pelagic catch of 1896, 

 the whole parcel came under my notice and were examined by me. 



2. There is absolutely no ditUcnlty whatever in distinguishing the sex of the adult seals as, 

 apart from all other distinctions (and there are several, as for instance, a dift'erence in the size and shape 

 of the head and also in the color), the distinction in the breast is very markeil, those ^f the females 

 being very large and prominent, and those of the males hardly distinguishable. It requires no expert 

 to distinguish the sex. In most instances the hair round the nipples of the female seals has been 

 worn off by the young pups. 



The only reason there is a doubt aa to the sex of the remaining 20 per cent of the skins is that 

 about this proportion are the skins of very young animals in which, the breasts and heads not being 

 fully developed, the sex is not so easily distinguishable, but this only applies to young pups and not 

 in any way to adult seals. 



There is no difliculty whatever in identifying the Bering Sea seals from those caught on the coast 

 of Japan and round or in the vicinity of the Copper Islands. 



And I make this soleiim declaration, conscientiously lielieviug the same to be true, and by virtue 

 of the provisions of the statutory declarations act of 1835. 



E. WiSCHHU.SEX. 



Declared at No. 138 New North road, in the county of London, on this 26th day of October, 1897, 

 before me. 



JoH.v Vexx, Xotary Public. 



Note. — Attached thereto are the official certificates of John Venn, notary public, of the city of 

 London, and William M. Osborne, consul-general of the United States, with their official seals. 



I, Walter Edward Martin, of 4 Lambeth Hill, in the city of London, member of the firm of 

 0. W. Martin & Sons, of the same place, fur dyers and dressers, solemnly, sincerely, and truly declare 

 as follows: 



I am a British subject, I have been in the business of dyeing and dressing fur-seal skins in 

 London about twenty-live years, and have personally handled many hundreds of thousands of such 

 skins, and I have in conse(|uence a special knowledge of .seal skins, 



I have at various times made a special examination of the skills of the northwest (pelagir) catch 

 of seals (a very large number of which come through my firm's hands) with a view to ascertaining 

 whether they are the skins of male or female seals, and I say that of the seals caught in the Bering 

 Sea and in the North Pacific Ocean by the pelagic sealers fully 80 per cent of them are female seals, 

 and I believe a still larger proportion. The remaining 20 per cent are mostly skins of young pn])s in 

 which the sex is not very distinguishable, and a few large bulls, not more than about 3 per cent of 

 the entire parcel. 



With regard to adult seals, there is no difficulty whatever in iletecting the skins of males and 

 the skins of females. The breasts are very prominent in the female seals, and it requires no expert 

 to detect which is the skin of a male seal and which the skin of a female seal, and very often round 

 tile lireasts of the femalis the fur has been worn away. The regulations of the arbitrators, made in 

 August, 1893, at Paris, with regard to jielagic sealing have not tended to in any way diminish the 

 proportion of female seals to males killed by the pelagic sealers, and the large majority of the skins 

 of the pelagic catch still bear traces of the seals having been killed by means of shot. 



There can be no doubt whatever that a continuation of the present system of slaughtering snch 

 a largo proportion of the female seals in the open ocean, with the consequential death of snch a large 

 proportion of pups, as is admitted by Prof. D'Arcy Thompson in his recent report to be due to pelagic 



