18 SEAL LIFE ON THE PKIBILOF ISLANDS. 



American vessels, with the exception of two or three, made poor catches. 

 Sealing with s])ears in Bering- Sea has therefore been profitable to Cana- 

 dian rather than American vessels. 



In respect to the claim that Bering Sea weather is sufiliciently unfavor- 

 able for sealing to afford tbe seals protection from excessive spear 

 bunting, the accomi)anying tables, although based on incomplete data, 

 show that there was only one day during the season, from August 1 to 

 September 21, when seals were not taken, and it is possible that when 

 all the data are accessible through exchange with Great Britain it will 

 be shown that seals were taken daily throughont the season. 



The same tables indicate that storms in Bering Sea are local in their 

 nature, vessels to the westward of the Pribilof Islands having been 

 hove-to, while others to the southward were making good catches. 



COMMENT ON THE PROPORTIONS OF THE SEXES REPORTED BY 

 THE SEALING FLEET. 



I have compared the proportions of the sexes of seals taken in Ber- 

 ing Sea by the Canadian and American fleets, and having considered 

 both in the light of depositions now in the possession of the Treasury 

 Department, made by London furriers, I can not admit that the propor- 

 tion of male and female seals reported by the vessels is correct. Ameri- 

 can sealers reported a greater proportion of females, and in no case 

 reported more males than females, as some of the masters of Canadian 

 vessels have done. The latter were sealing very close to vessels report- 

 ing from two to five times as many females as males. When I ques- 

 tioned the masters of the schooners Favorite, Walter Rich, Henrietta, 

 etc., as to their alleged greater number of males, their explanations to me 

 were that their seals were skinned in the canoes by the Indians, and 

 the pelts thrown on deck as they retnrned after dark, and that under 

 the circumstances they had no time to bother with inspecting skins 

 minutely as to sex. Such returns are unreliable, and there is no doubt 

 about the proportion of female seals taken by the Canadian fleet being 

 much greater than reported. This is borne out by the sworn state- 

 ments, now in possession of the Treasury Department, of Messrs. Mar- 

 tin and Teichmann, of London, as to the sex of seal skins derived 

 from the i)elagic catch of 1894 in Bering Sea and the North Pacific 

 Ocean. These gentlemen i)ersonally inspected some of the largest con- 

 signments of seal skins taken in 1894 and found 85 to 90 per cent of 

 them to be females. 



Mr. Lupp, of San Francisco, a seal hunter of several years' experi- 

 ence, informs me that the catch of 1,400 seals made by the vessel he 

 sailed with on the Japan Coast in 1892 consisted almost entirely of 

 females with young, there being less than 50 males in the entire lot, 

 and that of a catch of 1,100 seals taken by his vessel, the Louis Olsen, 

 in 1894, in the same region, all were females but about one dozen. 



Mr. John Fanning, who cruised as a hunter with the schooners X>eH>ty 

 and Retriever, informs me that nine out of every ten seals taken on the 

 Japan Coast by him were females, and that when sealing ott" the Com- 

 mander Islands eight out of every ten were females in milk. I ques- 

 tioned other sealers on this point, eliciting similar statements. 



In view of the above statements of London furriers, the statements 

 of masters of Canadian vessels as to the uncertainty of their method 

 of ascertaining the sex of each day's catch, and the statements of Japan 

 Coast sealers as to the great proportion of females in pelagic catches, 

 to say nothing of our knowledge of the subject from results apparent 



