SEALSKIN INDUSTRY IN UNITED STATES. 537 



deponent now lias, and a copy of which is hereto annexed and marked 

 B. Deponent thinks no modification of the statements made in those 

 two communications is necessary in tlie light of subsequent events, ex- 

 cepting in respect to the prediction of the Russian authoi ities that in con- 

 sequence of the reckless and indiscriminate killing of seals by the Ameri- 

 cans, the Pribilof herd would emigrate to the Eussian Islands. That 

 j)rediction has not been verified. There is no intermingling of the herds, 

 and the skins of the two herds of the Pribilof and 

 Commander Islands may be so readily distinguished .Alaskan and Riis- 

 from each other that an expert would have no dfdculty teimiug'ie! ** "°*^ ^^" 

 in at once throwing out from the catch taken on the 

 Commander Islands any skins of the Pribilof herd, and vice versa; 

 and deponant understands from persons who have had „, . ^ ^-^ ^ -, 



, ^ . • ii ■ r- /. j_i 1- • • Skins of the herd 



long experience in the examination of the living am- readily distinguish- 

 mals that the two herds so differ as to belong to sepa- *^^®- 

 rate species of the same genus, and can readily be distinguished from 

 each other. 



Third. Deponent further says that, commercially speaking, the seal 

 skins now coming upon the markets of the world are 

 obtained principally from three catches, known as the Present sources of 

 Copper, the Alaska, and the Northwest catches. The ^"cipper skins. 

 first includes the skins taken by the Russian Sealskin 

 Company from the islands of Copper and Bering, known as the Com- 

 mander Islands; also from Eobben Island in the Ohkotsk Sea. The 

 Robben Island skiris differ from those of the Com- 

 mander Islands. The Alaska catch includes the seals ^'''''^■'' '^'°'- 

 killed upon the Pribilof Islands by the lessees of the United States, 

 and the Northwest catch includes the seals caught in 

 the open Pacific and Bering Sea, exclusively, by what 

 are known as poaching vessels, and are distinguished from the Alaska 

 catch by the fact that they are all pierced by bullet, buckshot, or spear, 

 and are almost all females; and the skins of these three catches, as 

 deponent has before stated, are readily distinguishable from each other 

 and are well recognized in the trade as distinguishable from each other 

 and the differences between are clearly evidenced in the different prices 

 which have always been obtained for the seal skins of the three catches; 

 for instance, the skins of the Alaska catch now com- 

 mand and have always commanded by 20 or 30 per AiS'skins"*'® "*" 

 cent a better price than skins of the same size from the 

 Copper catch; and Jiis difference is also recognized by the Russian 

 Government, who lease the privilege of catching upon the Commander 

 Islands upon terms 25 per cent less than the terms exacted by the 

 United States for the lease catch upon the Pribilof Islands. 



Fourth. Deponent further says that the skins of the Northwest catch 

 are almost entirely the skins of females. That the 

 skins of males and the skins of females may be as m^t[y'ftmaies!"'**'^ 

 readily distinguished from each other as the skins of 

 the different sexes of any other animals, when seen before being dyed 

 and dressed, and that the reason why the skins of this ^^ therefor 



catch are almost exclusively females is that the male 

 seal is much more active and much more able to escape from the boats 

 engaged in this manner of hunting tlian the female seal, and that a 

 large number of the female seals included in the Northwest catch are 

 of animals heavy with young. A large number of females are also 

 caught on their way from and to the Pribilof Islands and their feeding 



