RELATING TO FUR-SEALS AND SEALSKIN INDUSTRY. 373 



tlie more distant rookeries more or less frequently, as appears by the 

 Seal Island records. His successors in office theorized that all the 

 rookeries ought to he worked iu regular rotation, and so directed. We 

 therefore increased our number of boats and mule teams in order to 

 transport the skins from distant points, and complied with his orders. 

 But we did not do this because of any scarcity of killable seals; no 

 scarcity occurred until pelagic sealing had already made serious in- 

 roads. There was no such thing ever thought of upon the islands as 

 "reserves of seals," nor was any different practice pursued in respect to 

 driving from year to year, except that all rookeries were worked more 

 systematically after the first few years of the lease. 



In the early years of the first lease a few of the bundles of sealskins 

 shipped from the Pribilof Islands may have weighed as 

 much as 60 pounds, but I would not undertake to say WeisM of buudles - 

 that I have seen any weighing as much. If there were any the explana- 

 tion is as follows: The skins in such bundles were those of small wigs, 

 and such skins were bundled together so that the flesh sides should be 

 covered completely and no overlapping edges left. 



Excrement is voided by the seals upon the rookeries as often, I think, 

 as by other carnivorous animals. Those who assert 

 the contrary apparently expect such discharges as they Excrement on rook- 

 were accustomed to see in the track of the herbivora. 

 The excrement of the seals is of very soft, often semifluid consistency, 

 and in the porous soil, or on the smooth rocks, is easily brushed about 

 by the trailing flippers of the seals and lost sight of. Their food is 

 chiefly fish, which is highly organized and contains very little tissue 

 that is not absorbed and assimilated. The excrement, therefore, is lim- 

 ited in quantity, even when the animal is full fed, and from its nature 

 and surroundings easily overlooked. 



H. H. McIntyre. 



Subscribed and sworn to before me this 16th day of December, 1892. 



[SEAL.] SEVELLON A. BROWN, 



Notary Public. 



Deposition of John Malowanslcy, agent of lessees of Commander Islands. 



District of Columbia, 



City of Washington, ss: 



John Malowansky, being duly sworn, deposes and says, with refer- 

 ence to the sections of the Report of the British Bering Sea Commis- 

 sioners hereinafter named, as follows: 



Sec. 283. The seals which are killed for skins on the islands have 

 been arriving later during the last two years. The killing time has 

 been extended two to three weeks. No alteration in the date of arrival 

 of females or of birth of young has been noticed. 



Sec. 296. No one on the Commander Islands believes that coition 

 ever takes place in the water. 



Sec. 431. I have never heard the natives or anyone else on the Com- 

 mander Islands report that there were barren females or females with- 

 out young. 



John Malowansky. 



Sworn to and subscribed before me, this 13th day of December, 1892. 

 [seal.] Sevellon A. Brown, 



Notary Public. 



