600 APPENDIX TO COUNTER-CASE OP GREAT BRITAIN. 



weather Grounds in schools of from 10 to 20. As a rule the males and 

 females go together — the yearlings are always found following up a 

 large band of seals. Codfish, salmon, and squid are the principal food 

 of the seals. I have killed females that had no pups, they are gen- 

 erally 2 years old and travel with the young seals, but I have seen a 

 few older females that were barren. We saw three or four seals south 

 of the Aleutian Islands last year in the early part of September as we 

 returned from Copper Island. We saw a few seals the day after we 

 went through Four Mountain Pass last year, but none then until we 

 were near Copper Island. Seals were no harder to get this year than 

 last season so far as I know. Seals are much harder to get when sev- 

 eral are together than when they go singly. We found fewer seals this 

 year than last, 



(Signed) James McEae. 



Unalaska, September 13, 1892. 



Declaration of A. S. Gamphell. 



I, A. S. Campbell, of the city of Victoria, now a seal-hunter on the 

 schooner " Oscar and Hattie," declare that I have been seal-hunting 

 three years — in 1888, 1889, and this year. 



I killed 43 or 45 seals, and got 35 of them; the others sank, but more 

 than half-a-dozen got away wounded. I have known seals that were 

 shot from a schooner to float from fifteen minutes to half -an -hour. 

 Nearly all the seals I have taken on the coast were females. I have 

 seen one or two females in milk off Cape St. Eli as. In Behring Sea I 

 found the seals about equally divided. Seals did not seem more this 

 year than in other years. Seals are harder to get when in bunches 

 than when alone. I once saw seals cohabiting about 50 (60) miles from 

 the islands; the female was killed. It was not a barren cow, but had 

 milk in its breasts. The two seals were upright in the water with 

 their flippers about one another, and had been in this position about 

 five minutes when I fired at them. The male gave two or three lunges 

 before he could free himself from the cow. The men in the boat with 

 me were sure that the seals were cohabiting, and one of them said he 

 had seen the same thing before in the same way. 



(Signed) A. S. Campbell. 



Unalaska, September 13, 1892. 



49 Declaration of William Cowie. 



I, William Cowie, now a hunter on the sealing- schooner " Oscar and 

 Hattie," declare that I have been sealing two years — one year as a 

 boat-steerer, and this year as a hunter. I killed 106 seals this year, of 

 which 3 sank; the others I secured. I did not wound more than 10 or 

 15 that got away, and of these very few would die. Seals nearly always 

 float long enough to allow one to reach them ; the gaff had to be used 

 only twice to keep seals from sinking. I shoot at a sleeping seal when 

 from 10 to 20 yards from it, and at a "traveller" never when it is more 

 than 40 yards away. I have found codfish in seals, but never looked 

 particularly at what was in their stomachs. I got a few barren females 

 this year — they were aU about 2 years old — off Cross Sound. I saw 



