632 APPENDIX TO COUNTER-CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



5. I have been sealing: as far south as Point Arena, north of San 

 Francisco. I have seen big schools of seals south of Cape Flattery in 

 the months of January, February, and March. These schools were of 

 all kinds of seals, both sexes, young and old. 



6. Seals in schools are hard to get; very hard; they are wild, always 

 more or less of them awake and watching. Hunters cannot get near 

 enough to shoot them. The best sealiug-grounds are where the seals 

 are scattered and asleep. More than three-quarters of the seals I have 

 got were sleepers. I never lost many sleepers by sinking. My losses 

 were from the "travellers." 



7. That I saw lots of seals on the coast this year, especially early in 

 the season, when seals were more numerous than I ever saw them 

 before. I saw more seals off Cape Flattery this year than anywhere 

 else, and more there than ever before. 



8. Very few wounded seals die. If badly wounded I always get 

 them; if lightly wounded they escape and easily get well. I have got 

 seals with old shot wounds on them perfectly healed. In the seven 

 years I have been out I have found only two dead seals; neither were 

 very long dead; the skins were sound. 



9. The seals on the southern coast feed principally on salmon ; up 

 north on salmon and squid. 



10. I got 144 seals on the Copper Island gronnds this year. The only 

 difference between those seals and the seals on this side, so far as I 

 can see, is that they are tamer. 



11. The " Sea Lion" left the Cooper Island grounds on the 13th Sep- 

 tember for Victoria. I saw seals scattered all the way over, and quite 

 a number oft' Cape Flattery. 



12. That to my knowledge seals have not decreased in numbers 

 during the six years I have been sealing. 



13. Male seals have teats, but smaller than the females, and except 

 in the skins of old seals the skins cannot be distingnished by teats. 



14. Cow seals with pup are very uneasy, easily disturbed, and hard 

 to get, and this is more so as the season gets later. The females are 

 then travelling nearly all the time. 



15. That I have never seen old bulls or " wigs" farther north than off 

 Queen Charlotte Islands. 



And I make this solemn declaration conscientiously believing the 

 same to be true, and by virtue of "The Act respecting Extra-judicial 

 Oaths." 



(Signed) Andrew Mathison. 



Subscribed and declared by the said Andrew Mathison before me, a 

 Notary Public duly commissioned, and residing and practising at the 

 city of Victoria, in the Province of British Columbia, this 21st day of 

 October, A. d. 1892. 



[seal.] (Signed) Arthur L. Beltea, 



A Notary Public in and for the Province of British Columbia. 



Declaration of William Shields. 



Dominion of Canada, 



Province of British Columbia, City of Victoria, 



I, William Shields, of the city of Victoria, in the Province of British 

 Columbia, do solemnly declare as follows: 



1. That for the last seven years I have gained my livelihood as a 

 seal-hunter. 



