TAKEN IN SAN FRANCISCO. 473 



Deposition of Adolphus Sayers, sealer (master). 



pelagic sealing. 



State of California, 



City and County of San Francisco, ss: 

 AdolpLus Sayers, having been duly sworn, deposes and says: I am 

 a seaman. I reside in San Francisco. I was engaged 

 in sealing in the Bering Sea and Korth Pacific, in the Experience. 

 City of San Diego and the Addine, in the years 1887 city of san Diego, 

 and 1888. I was master of the Adeline. We com- Adeline, mi. ishs. 

 menced to seal from the Cordell Banks off the coast of sealing off coast. 

 California right up to the Bering Sea. On the voyage 

 of the City of San Diego, which lasted about eight months, we got 

 about 1,900 seals. The hunters had rifles and shotguns, but as we 

 entered the Bering Sea the revenue cutter Corwin took 

 away our rifles and left us the shotguns. The shotgun Entered Bering sea. 

 is not as fatal as the rifle, but it ruins the skins of the seals. I was a 

 boat-puller when I was on the City of San Diego. I can not tell from 

 the appearance of a seal in the water whether it is a male or female, 

 but most all of the seals we killed in the water were 

 females. Sometimes we opened them and found young nji^|™ffjf„^^ iSands^'^'' 

 pups inside, and sometimes they were mothers that had 

 given birth to their young and their breasts were full of milk, and 

 we often killed them 100 miles or more from the seal islands. A seal 

 never bears but one pup at a time. An ordinary hunter, on an aver- 

 age, will not kill one out of four breaching seals, and sometimes he will 

 not get one. The sleeping seal is the most easily killed, 

 and we got about one out of three killed and wounded, "^^ste of lifo. 

 I know that the seals are rapidly decreasing, and I Decrease. 

 believe it is caused by killing females in the water. 



Adolphus Sayers. 



Subscribed and sworn to before me this 4th day of April, A. D. 1892. 

 [SEAL.] » Clement Bennett, 



Notary Public. 



Deposition of G. M. Scammon, officer Revenue Marine. 



pelagic sealing. 



State of California, 



City and County of San Francisco, ss: 

 C. M. Scammon, having been duly sworn, deposes and says: I am 67 

 years old and a resident of Oakland, Cal. I am and 

 have been an officer in the United States Revenue ^penence. 

 Marine Corps since 1803. In 1865 and 1806 I was in command of 

 the Western Union Telegraph Company's fleet of vessels when it 

 was expected to establish a telegraph line to Europe via Bering- 

 Straits. In this capacity and later as conmiander of vessels under the 

 United States revenue- cutter flag, I repeatedly passed through Bering 

 Sea, touching at the seal islands. I am the author of the work entitled 

 "The Marine Mammals of the Northwestern Coast of ISTorth America," 

 published by J. H. Carmany & Co., San Francisco, 1874. In prepar- 

 ing Chapter iv of part 2 of that work, relative to fur-seals, I consulted 



