512 TESTIMONY. 



as to yearlings, the yearlings not averaging more than 

 Prices paid for skins. 2 per ccnt, wliereas the coast skins are always bought 



Proportion ot year- -^i t •. j.- . t . , •^. '^ , 



lings. With a limitation as to yearlings, one price being made 



for the skins and the otlier for the yearlings. In these 

 lots the yearlings usually average 10 per cent. 

 anaT^'e'fski'us'^^'''"''^ ^ herewith attach samples of dressed and dyed fur- 

 am tyet s lus. ^^^^ skins of the Alaska seals, labeled as follows: 

 Exhibit No. 1, showing the teats on the belly of a virgin female. 

 Exhibit No. 2, showing the teats on a cow heavy with pup. 

 Exhibit No. 3, showing teats on a cow suckling pups. 

 Exliibit No. 4, showing teats on a bachelor seal. 

 Exhibit No. 5, showing the teats on a wig. 



Geokge Liebes, 



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

 [L. s.] Clement Bennett, 



Notary Public. 



Deposition of Herman Liehes, furrier, San Francisco. 



GENEKAL SEALSKIN INDUSTIIY AND PELAGIC SEALING. 



City and County of Neiv York, ss: 

 Herman Liebes, being duly sworn, says: 



First. That he is 50 years of age and resides in the city of San Fran- 

 cisco, California. That he has been in the fur business 

 Experience. since he was 13 years of age, and established in his 



Purchased skins own busiiicss in Sail Francisco in theyear 18C4. That 

 imuans'n ^5*^'''''''*' h^ first bcgau to buy sealskins in the year 18G5. At 

 Oni female skins that time he made his imi't'bases from the Indians on 

 n y ema e 8 ins. ^jjg^gg^^.j.jj ^oast of the Amcricaii continent, who offered 

 to him only the skins of female seals; that the price he originally paid 

 for them was as low as 50 cents per skin; that he offered the Indians a 

 much higher price for male skins, and was told by them 

 maiTskins*" ^''"*'"'^ that the male seals could not becauglit, and that many 

 Indians whom he has personally seen kill seals, and 

 from whom he has bought skins, have told him that male seals and the 

 Reasons therefor y<'"i'8" ♦^'ows wcrc too actlvc to bc caught and that it 

 was only the female seals heavv with young which they 

 could catch. The males, for instance, as deponent was told by the 

 seal hunters, come up to the surface of the water after diving, often as 

 much as a mile from the place they went down; wliereas the females 

 can when pregnant hardly dive at all. 



Deponent says that from his own observation of live seals during 

 many years, and from his personal inspection of the 

 m.SSai*l8W skins, lie knows the difference between the skin of a 

 female seal and a male seal to be very marked, and 

 that the two are easily distinguishable. The skin of the female seal 

 shows the marks of the breast, about which there is no fur. The belly 

 of the female seal is barren of fur also, whereas on the male the fur is 

 thick and evenly distributed. The female seal has a much narrower 

 head than the male seal, and this difference is apparent in the skins ; also 

 that the difierences between the male and female skins are so marked 



