HELATING TO ST. PAUL ISLAND. lOl 



the breeding rookery iu May or June, when lie is 7 or Males in rookeries. 

 8 years old, and lie fights for his cows, and does not 

 leave the place he has selected nntil August or Sep- ^ ''^ ^'"'^^ 

 tember. Our people like the meat of the seal, and we eat no other 

 meat so long as we can get it. 



The pup seals are our chicken meat, and we used to be allowed to kill 

 3,000 or 4,000 male pups every year in JS^ovember, but 

 the Government agent forbade us to kill any in 1891, i'"p^ ^« ^°«"i- 

 and said we should not be allowed to kill any more, -Kjning of pups for 

 and he gave us other meat in place of "pup" meat; but ""^ "^ °^'''*^ 

 we do not like any other meat as well as pup seal meat. We under- 

 stand the danger there is in the seals being all killed off and that we will 

 have no way of earning our living. There is not one peiagic seaiin 

 of us but what believes if they had not killed them cause of decrease* °^ 

 off by shooting them in the water there would be as otherwise 100,000 

 many seals on the island now as there was in 1880, and umit could be main- 

 we could go on forever taking 100,000 seals on the two *'^'''®'^- 

 Islands; but if they get less as fast as they have in the last five or six 

 years there will be none left in a little while. 



Kerrick Artomanoff. 



Subscribed and sworn to before me, an officer empowered to admin- 

 ister oatiis, under section 1970, Eevised Statutes of the United States, 

 this 8th day of June, 1892, at St. Paul Island, Alaska. 



Wm. H. Williams, 

 Treasury Agent in Charge of Seal Islands. 



Deposition of Milton Barnes, special employe of JJ. 8. Treasury on St. Paul 



Island. 



PELAGIC-SEALING. 



Territory of Alaska, U. S. A., 



St. Paul Island, ss: 



I, Milton Barnes, being duly sworn according to law, depose and say 

 as follows : I am a citizen of the United States, and when at home re- 

 side near Columbus, Ohio. Have been temporarily stationed during 

 the last year on the Island of St. Paul, one of the fur- 

 seal or Pribilof Group in Bering Sea, as a special em- ^penence. 

 ploy6 of the United States Treasury Department on said island. 



One day, during the latter part of August or fore part of September last 

 (exact date forgotten), Ool. Josei)h Miu-ray, one of the Treasury agents, 

 and myself, iu company with the British Commissioners, Sir George 

 Baden-Powell and Dr. Dawson, by boat visited one of the seal rooker- 

 ies of that Island, known as Tolstoi or EugUsh.Bay. On arriving there 

 our attention was at once attracted by the excessive ^^^^ 

 number of dead seal pups whose carcasses lay scattered ®^ ^"^^' 

 profusely over the breeding ground or sand beach bordering the rook- 

 ery proper, and extending into the border of the rookery itself. The 

 strange sight occasioned much surmise at the time as to the probable 

 cause of it. Some of the carcasses were in an advanced stage of decay, 

 while others were of recent death, and their general appearance was 

 that of having died of starvation. There were a few that still showed 



