98 PELAGIC SEALING. 



Table only gives nig the number of encysted bullets found in 



seals lost by sink- 



in s- male seals killed on the Islands in 1890, showing 



an average of one bullet to 280 seals killed 

 (Sec. 628). The notion that the carcass of every 

 seal killed on the Islands is searched for encysted 

 bullets is sufficiently absurd, but it seems to be 

 assumed in the reasoning of the Commissioners. 

 Seals lost by The necessarily large percentage of seals which 



wounding. J . . 



lose their lives by wounding is shown by Mr. 

 Townsend in his account of his experience as a 

 pelagic hunter. 1 He states that "many times the 

 animal is wounded sufficiently to get out of reach 

 of the hunter before it dies;" 1 and, again, "it is 

 from the instantly killed the seals are secured; 

 the wounded animal uses its death struggle to 

 get out of reach." 1 It is evident how much this 

 class of "seals lost" must outnumber those which, 

 killed outright, sink before they can be secured; 2 

 and yet the Commissioners have, presumably 

 through oversight, ignored this important factor 

 of waste of life and have dealt solely with the 

 seals which pelagic hunters lose by the sinking 

 of the carcass. 



1 Post p. 395. 



• Bee also reports of Capt. C. L. Hooper, post pp. 208-219. 



