108 • TESTIMONY 



All^ows killed on the seal islands are killed accidentally, and it oc- 

 curs so seldom that I do not think there has been to 

 ceJtVy Iccident^ ^^' excccd 100 since I came to the island in 1869. So care- 

 fully has this been guarded that when we used to be 

 allowed to kill pup seals iu JSTovember we had to examine and separate 

 the sexes and kill none but males. 

 Arrival of seals "^^^ scals caiuc to the islauds in spring and they came 



mva o seas. from the southward. 



The first bulls arrive late in x\pril or very early in May, and they are 



^^^^ coming along till June. The bachelors come in May, 



" ^' the older ones first, and they continue coming till July, 



when the younger ones arrive. The cows appear about 



^^^' the 10th of June, and they are all on the rookeries about 



the middle of July. 



The pups are born soon after the arrival of the cows, and they are 



^ ,. ^, ^ helpless and can not swim, and they would drown if 



Pups, birth of. / • . j_ mi 1 ' j^ 



put into water. The pups have no sustenance except 



swim. what the cows liirnish and no cow suckles any puj) but 



her own. The pujis would suck any cow if the cow would let them. 



After the pup is a few days old the cow goes into the sea to feed and 



^ , , ,. at first she will only stay away for a few hours, but as 



Females feeding. ,. j. i -n j. i 



the pup grows stronger she will stay away more and 

 more until she will sometimes be away for a week. 



I do not think the bachelors go to feed from the time they haul out 



until they leave the islands in November, for I have 



leJvTSnds to fe"d! obscrvcd the males killed in May are fat and their 



stomachs full of fish, mostly codfish, while the males 



killed in July and afterwards are poorer and poorer and their stomachs 



are empty. I know the bulls do not eat during their four months' stay 



on the islands. 



In August the families, or harems, break up and the cows scatter all 



Mi -'ration ^^^^' ^^^^ rookcrics, and the bulls begin to go away late 



>gra ion. .^ August aud all through September, so that very few 



are left in October. The cows and bachelors begin to leave in October 



and November, but their going is regulated somewhat by the weather. 



Cold stormy weather, with sudden heavy frost, will drive them off 



sooner, so that the islands will be deserted by December 15, while warm 



weather will keep plenty of bachelors here until late in January, when I 



have known them to be driven and killed for food. When the seals 



leave the island they go southward and through the passes of the 



Aleutian Islands into the Pacific Ocean. 



It was in 1884 that I first noticed a decrease in the seals, and it has 



been a steady aud a very rapid decrease ever since 1886, 



Decrease. ^^ ^j^^^ ^^ prcscut there is not one quarter as many seals 



on the island as there was every year from 1869 to 1883. 



I have known of one or two schooners operating iu Bering Sea as 



. early as 1877 or 1878, and they were on the rookeries 



occasionally during the past ten years; but they can 



not damage the seal herd much by raiding the rookeries, because they 



can not take many, even were they permitted to land, which they are 



not by any means. 



The schooners increased every year from the time I first noticed 



them until in 1884 there was a fleet of 20 or 30, and 



cr^ase'iSiin^tlei't! t^^u I bcgaii to scc uiorc and more dead pups on the 



rookeries, until in 1891 the fleet of sealing schooners 



numbered more than a hundred and the rookeries were covered with 



dead pups. 



