TAKEN IN SAN FRANCISCO. 503 



by tliat instinct given by nature to all mothers, have 

 gone forth to search for food to sustain the life of the ^"•"^i««^«'<^^^in?- 

 little one. In either case the death of the mother means the death of 

 the young. 



hi the list of skins offered for sale in the London market there appears 

 the classification "black pups." These are the skins 

 of unborn seals torn from the wombs of their dead '"' ^'"^ "^"''' 



mother. It is not a pleasant picture, but it can not be avoided. 



The soft-eyed seal mother, making her rapid way through the Bering 

 Sea to reach the islands in time to bring forth her young, for she knows 

 that the time of gestation is nearly at an end, with every instinct of her 

 nature concentrated in the thought of lier expected delivery, in that 

 condition, of all others, most demnnding the consideration of brutes, let 

 alone of men, is slain by the rutlilcss seal hunters and herj^up dragged 

 moist from the womb that his skin may figure among the proceeds of 

 the sealer's trip. There is something so revolting, so hideous in this 

 slaughter that even the sealers themselves do not care to talk about it. 



So, too, is revolting the slaughter of the female seal that has given 

 birth to her ]iu]) and gone out into the sea to find food to sustain the 

 lives of both of them. She leaves her i)u]> on shore, a helpless, tiny 

 thing, soft and i>nl]>y, and only able to wriggle and bark. Nature has 

 taught her to recognize it among hundreds of thousands by its plaintive 

 bleat, and the eagerness with Avhich she rushes to its side when she 

 comes ashore shows how much she loves to fondle and care for it. If 

 the motlier is killed the pup will linger on for a time, 

 only to die of starvation in the end, or, because of weak- ^^' ^"^''' 

 ness, be dashed to pieces in the first storm. Thousands of these orphan 

 pups are found along the coast after a severe storm, dead, because they 

 had not sufficient strength to exist in their natural element. Had their 

 mothers been spared till it was time for the i)ups to take to the water 

 and live on fish of their own catching, no storm that ever raged in the 

 Arctic Ocean could disturb them. The seal pup can live a long time 

 without food, which is a wise provision of nature, because the mother often 

 has to go a very long distance to fish, but after a few days, if the mother 

 does not return, the pup's vitality becomes exhausted and it dies. 



WHAT HUNTERS LOSE. 



In attem])ting to ascertain exactly the number of seals killed and 

 h)st by the liering Sea hunters, I found a wide diver- ^^, ,, , , 



,. . j_ , ' What hunters lose, 



gence of statement. 



It is greatly to the advantage of the seal hunter to have the reputa- 

 tion of losing but few seals. He is paid by the skin, and the more he 

 catches the greater his remuneration, but that is not all. The hunter 

 with the l)est reputation as a sure catcher is in the greatest demand, 

 can secure employment in the best schooner and the largest sum of 

 advance money. Besides self-interest, there comes vanity to urge the 

 hunter to n)ake the bigg<'st rei)utation ])ossible for himself. 



To use a common expicssion, tlie seal hunters all brag about their 

 sureness of aim. The best shots use a rifle and fire at 

 a range of from 50 to 125 yards. The poorer shots de- ofThoIr^'skilr ^''■'''* 

 pend on a shotgun loaded with buckshot, and will fire 

 at a seal up to 50 yards away. The Indian hunters use spears, and 

 paddle noiselessly up to the sleeping seal to plunge the spear in its 

 shoulder. They never attempt to spear a seal that is awake. An In- 

 dian hunter will paddle in among a lot of "sleei)ers " and spear them, 



