RELATING TO PRIBILOF ISLANDS 61 



return to the Pribilof Islands as a representative of the said Ahiska 

 Commercial Company. 



In pursuance of such request I returned to the islands as ageut of 

 said last-mentioned company in charge of the island of St. George, 

 Avhich with the islands of St. Paul, Otter, and Walrus, coiistitue the 

 group known as the Pribilof Islands. I arrived at said island some 

 time in May, 1S74; took up my residence there and remained in my 

 capacity of ageut in and about that island during each sealiug season 

 thereafter until the year 1887. At the expiration of the sealing season 

 of 1887, I returned to the United States, and in 1891 was engaged by 

 the Eussian Sealskin Company, of St. Petersburg, as chief agent of 

 that company, to proceed to the islands of Koraandorski, consisting of 

 Copper and Bering Islands, commonly called the Commander Islands, 

 which said company had a lease of the said Commander Islands as weU 

 as of the island of Tuleni or Kobben, in the Okhotsk Sea, to kill seals 

 and other fur- bearing animals on those islands on the payment of a 

 royalty to the Russian Government. During the years above-mentioned 

 I have superintended the killing of, on the average, 18,000 seals a year; 

 and in tlie last year of my employment by the Russian Sealskin Com- 

 pany I killed or superintended the killing of 30,000 seals. The skinning, 

 curing of skins, packing of skins, and shi])ping of the skins from the 

 islauds of all the seals the killing of which I superiutended has been 

 under my immediate supervision, and a considerable i^art of the work 

 thereof has been done by me ])ersonally. 



That during my employment on said Pribilof Islands I carefully 

 studied the habits of the fur-seal and the statements hereafter made as 

 to the habits of said animals are based on my own observation and also 

 from the fact that these statements have been corroborated by natives 

 and residents on said islands, whom I know to be familiar with every 

 phase of seal life. 



The Alaska fur-seal breeds, I am thoroughly convinced, only upon 

 the Pribilof Islands ; that I have been on the Alaska 

 coast and also along the Aleutian Islands; that at no Alaskan seal brceiis 



• , 1 -r 1 T Tiiij_ii ^^"- Iwiils up only on 



point have I ever observed seals to haul out on land Pribiiof islands. 

 except at the Pribilof Islands, nor have I been able to 

 obtain any authentic information which causes me to believe such is 

 the case. 



The Alaska fur-seal is migratory, leaving the Pribilof Islands in the 

 early winter going southward into the Pacific and Mi-iatiou 

 returning again in May, June, and July to said islands. '"'"^ ^''"' 

 I have observed certain bull seals return year after year to the same 

 place on the rookeries, and I have been informed by natives, that have 

 lived on the islands, that this is a Avell known fact and has been ob- 

 served by them so often that they stated it as an absolute fact. 



I believe that the cause the seals chose these islands for their home 

 is because of the isolation of these Pribilof Islands and because the 

 climatic condition of said Pribilof Islands is particn- ^jj^^j^ ^^ islands 

 larly favorable to seal life. During the time the seals ™'* 

 are upon land the weather is damp and cool, the islauds being almost 

 continually enveloped in fogs, the average temperature being about 

 41° F. during the summer. 



The pup seals are born on the breeding rookeries on St. Paul and St. 

 George islands during the months of June and July. When first born 

 ai pup can only hve upon land, is not amphibious, and is 

 unable to swim. If it is washed off into the sea by the J^ ''"' '''''^'^'^'■ 

 surf it is drowned, as I have often seen. If a pup was 



