TAKEN IN SAN FRANCISCO. 46] 



schooner had four hunting boats, and each boat had a boat-steerer, a 

 puller, and a liunter. We left here in the Alexander in the latter end 

 of April, and arrived in the Bering Sea about the 

 month of July. We caught about 400 or 500 seals be- ^^''^ feiiaie«^'''""° 

 fore we got to the Bering Sea. I don't know the pre- 

 cise number. They were bulls and females mixed in, but the general 

 run of them were females. The hunters shot with rifles and used car- 

 tridges and shot at all kinds they saw. They also ^^^3^^^^^^.^ 

 had double-barrel shotguns and made their own car- 

 tridges. The hunters lost a good many of the seals that they shot, be- 

 cause they could not get up quick enough to get them before they 

 would sink. We would use a hook to spear them, but sometimes we 

 could not often get hold of them even with that. The bulls generally 

 sunk quicker than female seals. 



When we skinned tlie females that we killed in Ber- 

 ing Sea we would find they were mothers in milk, as taken iu^Beiing sea.' 

 the milk was running out of their teats. Several of 

 the females that we caught in the ocean were in pup, but the pup taken 

 out of the belly was of no use for anything, and we would throw it over- 

 board. Taking the general average, we would not get vvasteof life 

 more than 2 seal out of every 10 that the hunters shot 

 at. Out of every 65 seal that was brought aboard the schooner I got 

 1, so I tried to spear as many as I could after they were shot. We 

 caught more seals in the Bering Sea than we did going along the coast, 

 as we found more of them. We did not come across any revenue cut- 

 ters. We saw with the aid of a glass a revenue cutter 

 a long distance oft'. We would catch them all the way mnefftom the islands'! 

 from 100 to 300 miles off the seal islands. When we 

 had fine weather we were out in the boats killing all the seals we could 

 get. We could not hunt in rough weather. All the seals that we shot 

 at in rough weather were lost. In fine weather they sleei) on top of 

 the Avater and we do not lose so many of them. We 

 made the same sort of voyage in the Otter in 1890. otter,i8m. 

 Tlicre Avere not as iQany seals in 1890 as there were in 

 1889. I think there are so many boats and hunters °^''^'*"^^'^- 

 out after them that they are being killed off". They are hunted too 

 much. 



William McIsaac. 



Subscribed and sworn to before me this 8th day of April, A. D. 1892. 

 [seal.] Clement Bennett, 



Notary rahlic. 



Deposition of William McLaughlin, sealer [boat-puller). 



pelagic sealing. 



State of California, 



City and County of San Francisco, ss : 



William McLaughlin, having been duly sv^orn, deposes and says: I 

 reside in San Francisco; my occupation is that of a 

 seaman. I shipped as a boat-puller in 1886, on the Experience. 

 schooner Triumph. We had six or seven boats 011 Triumph, i^^ti. 

 board, tlu'ce men to a boat, and we used slidtguus and 



