RELATING TO FUR-SEALS AND SEALSKIN INDUSTRY. 391 



ograph published in 1875. There had been up to that date no series of 

 observations nor good evidence on which to base the hypothesis that 

 the Pribilof herd and the huge mass of seals annually seen on the lati- 

 tude of Cape Flattery were identical. On the contrary, there seemed 

 then to be many evidences that some other rookeries than those of the 

 Pribilof Islands were located at some point on the Oregon, Washington, 

 or British Columbia coast. Young seals were occa- 

 sionally found by the Indians upon or near the beaches, Birth of pups ' 

 aud pregnant females were often captured by them so heavy with pup, 

 and apparently so near their full term of pregnancy, as to warrant the 

 belief that the young must be either born- in the water, upon bunches 

 of kelp, or upon the rocks and beaches on or near the coast. Young 

 seals were often brought to the Indian villages, and the testimony of 

 both Indian and white hunters at that time pointed strongly to the 

 conclusion that the breeding grounds of the animals with which we 

 were familiar could not be far distant. I have myself seen the black 

 pups in the water when they appeared to be but a few weeks old, and 

 others have assured me that a considerable number were found from 

 time to time swimming with their mothers. This phenomenon of con- 

 stant occurrence year after year, and in the absence of a wider range 

 of observations, we were naturally confirmed by them in the conclusion 

 to which I have above referred. 



In recent years it has been demonstrated by the large catches ob- 

 tained off the coast by pelagic hunters, and by the testimony of a great 

 number of people whose attention has been directed to the matter, that 

 the herd of seals, of which we saw only a very limited portion from the 

 Neah Bay station, is a very large one; and it now seems beyond a 

 doubt that the comparatively few authentic cases in which pups were 

 seen upon or in the vicinity of the coast were anomalous, for it is 

 reasonable to suppose that in so large a mass of pregnant females an 

 occasional one would be prematurely overtaken by the pains of par- 

 turition, and that the offspring brought forth under favorable condi- 

 tions, as upon a bunch of kelp or some rock, should survive at least a 

 few days and be brought in and kept by the Indians, as I have 

 occasionally seen them. I have also seen at the villages late in the 

 season, in the hands of the Indian boys, live pups which had been re- 

 cently removed from their speared mothers, and whose vitality was 

 such that they continued to live for several days ; but it is a well-known 

 fact that young mammalia may be born several days, or possibly even 

 a month or two, before full term and still survive. It is possible, too, 

 that as a source of error the hunters may have mistaken grey pups, 

 whose coats had been darkened by wetting, or those a few months old, 

 born the preceding summer, for the so-called " black pups." 



At the Neah Bay station large bull seals are seldom seen, and the 

 major part of those killed are pregnant females having in them small 

 fetuses early in the season, say about January or February, and later 

 full-grown young. From all the evidence I am able to gather, I be- 

 lieve the different classes of seals remain apart when upon the British 

 Columbia coast, the old bulls and immature young 

 males being chiefly found at a considerable distance isra 10n " 

 from the land, while the pregnant females and young males travel 

 close along the shore, and are frequently seen in limited numbers in the 

 straits and inlets. 



In the light of investigation and lesearch had since the date of my 

 observations, the most of which were made more than ten years ago, 

 I am satisfied that the mass of the herd from which the British Co- 



