144 TESTIMONY 



lias been to guard and observe them, have no knowk^d^e of the exist- 

 ence of either. ' An impotent bull dare not attempt to go on a rookery, 

 even had he a desire to do so. Excepting the extremely old and feeble, 

 I have never seen a bull tliat ^ as imijotent. 



The seals come to the islands every year from the southward, through 

 Arrival of seals *^® passes of the Aleutian Islands ; and the bulls reach 

 the islands late in April or early in May, and they con- 

 ■'^"^'^' tinue to haul out till June. They select their stations 



on the rookeries, and I believe they generally return to the spot they 

 occupied the previous year ; and they stay there till August or Sep- 

 tember without food or water, and without much rest 

 or sleep. The cows begin to haul out early in June 

 and they continue to haul out till about the middle of July; and the 

 pups are born soon after the cows land on the rookeries. When the 

 pup is born it is utterly helpless and would drown if 

 Pups cau not swim. ^^^^ ^^^^ watcr. Thosc bom nearest the water are often 

 drowned in the suif when the sea is rough in stormy weather. When 

 ^ , ^ ,. the pup is a few days old the cow goes into the sea to 



Females feeding. ±- i -i j.i i i ii -n j 



teed, and as the puj) grows older the cow will stay 

 longer and longer, until sometimes she will be away for a week. When 

 the cows return they go to their own pups, nor will a cow suckle any 

 l)up but her own. The pujis would suck any cow that would let them, 

 for they do not seem to know one cow from another. 

 swim!" ^''^'■'''"s '° At 7 or 8 weeks old the pups learn to swim by first 

 paddling in the shallow water, but after learning to 

 swim they appear to prefer to stay on land until the cold weather drives 

 them off in November. 



Until 1891 we were allowed to kill several thousand pup seals for 



food in November about the time they were ready to 



ups vi 61 01 GO . jg^^g ^j^g Island. We generally killed ten or twelve 



for every person on the Island, and when we killed them they were 



always found to be full of milk. 



The bachelors commence to haul out in May, and they haul out till 



. . , ,., . , latein July, the older ones coming early and the younger 



Arrival of bachelors. i - *^ ' i t i t- i j.i u. .ti i i -n i • 



ones later; audi have lound that the seals lulled m 



May and early June were fat and that their stomachs were full of focxl, 



principally codfish, and that later in the season they were poor and had 



„ , ,, , nothing in their stomachs. My opinion, therefore, is 



Only mofclier seals ... ° ■, . .■, ^^ i *^ ^ • "^i . ' j_ 



leave the' islands for thatiioiie but the motlicr scals go out m the sea to eat 

 ^''°^^- during the time the herds are on the islands, and this 



accounts for the great number of cows shot by the sealing schooners in 

 Bering Seaduring July, August, and September. I was visiting in San 

 Francisco in the winter of 1890-'U1, and I worked in a for store duiing 

 . t d 1 ' several months of my stay there, and I was called on 

 hiiii hf sTni^ranciseo to liaiidlc and iuspcct thousauds of the skins taken by 

 those of cows. schooners in Bering Sea, and they were nearly all cow- 



seal skins. 



1 know of no other explanation than this: The cows are shot and 

 killed when they go into the sea to feed and the pui)S die on the rook- 

 eries. This, I think, is the true solution of the vexed question, " What 

 has become of the seals f When the season ends and the compact 

 Minrition family organization breaks up, the bulls begin to leave 



igra ion. ^^^^ islaiids, goiiig away slowly through September and 



early October before they are all gone. 



The bachelors, cows, and pups go in November, the older bachelors 

 leaving late in October and the pups in November. Sometimes in good, 



