TAKEN IN SAN FRANCISCO. 417 



the water and on the breeding rookeries from the deck of my vessels 



and have also repeatedly visited tlie hauling grounds from year to year, 



and it was about 1884 and 1885 that bare spots began 



to appear on the rookeries, so much so that myself and ^.o^^^^f^^"" "" '^'■'^^ °^ 



the other officers often spoke of it and discussed the 



causes therefor. 



The decrease in number of seals both on the Pribilof Islands and in 

 the waters of the Bering Sea and North Pacific has been 

 very rapid since 1885, especially so in the last three or ^''"'''''' °^'''''^'- 

 four years, and it is my opinion that there is not now more than one- 

 third of the number of seals in these waters and on the islands that 

 there were ten years ago. I attribute this decrease to ^^,^^^^ ^^. ^.^ . 

 the terrible slaughter of female seals now going on in cipaHy female.''^""' 

 the sea. I believe the days of the fur-seal are .pretty 

 much over, and if the remnant is to be saved, they must Protection noces- 

 be protected in the waters of the North Pacifi.c as well as "'''•^' 

 in those of Bering Sea, from the rifle and shotgun of tlie hunter. I am of 

 the opinion that it will take careful nursing for some years, under the 

 most favorable circumstances, to restore the number of seals to anything 

 like what it was prior to 1878. I was in the employ of the Alaska Com- 

 mercial Company, the former lessees of the seal islands, and their in- 

 structions were to use the utmost care in taking their 

 quota of seals, so that there might be no dimiiiution in ™agemcnt. 

 number fi'om year to year, and I personally know those instructions 

 were rigidly enforced. From my experience, observation, and conver- 

 sation with seal hunters, I am of the opinion that fully 

 75 per cent of their catch are females, and that a vast mSniyMmaies*! "''*'''' 

 number of the seals killed by them are lost. I am not 

 now, and never have been, in the employ of the present lessees of the 

 seal islands. 



Leander Cox. 



Subscribed and sworn to before me this Gth day of April, A. D. 18'J2. 

 [SEAL.] Clement Bennett, 



Notary PubliG. 



Deposition of John Dalton, sealer {hoat-puller), 



pelagic sealing. 



State of California, 



City and county of San Francisco, ss: 

 John Dalton, having been duly sworn, deposes and says: I am 32 

 years of age. I reside in San Francisco. My occupation is that of a 

 sailor. I made a sealing voyage to the North Pacific 

 aud Bering Sea in 1885, on' the schooner Alexander, ^^P^^^^e. 

 of which Capt. J. F. McLean was master. I was a ^Jexander, i8S5, in 

 boat-puller. We left Victoria in January and went ®""='''^''*- 

 south to Cape Flattery and Cape Blanco, sealing around there 

 about two months, when we went north, sealing all the way up to 

 the Bering Sea. We had between 100 and 300 seals before entering 

 the sea. Most all of them were females with pups in them. We en- 

 tered the sea to the best of my recollection about June, ,, , „ , 

 and caught about 000 seals in there, two-thirds of which ^^ ^ '* 

 271G— VOL 11 27 



