648 APPENDIX TO COUNTER-CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



since at one place. tV'e j^ot very few each year out of these bands — this 

 year I got only seventeen in five days — they were too wild to get at. 

 Seals always are wild when in bands. 



8. That judging by the number of seals taken on the coast this year 

 by myself and all other hunters I am acquainted with, seals must have 

 been more numerous this year than before. 



9. That I shoot sleeping seals at from 10 to 15 yards range — accord- 

 ing to the state of the water and whetlier they are sleeping or not. I 

 shoot travelling seals at from 40 to CO yards. About one-third of the 

 seals I get are " travellers," and most of those lost are of this class. 



10. That the large seals of both sexes generally travel together, 

 except that as the seals near Behring Sea, the cows in pup gradually 

 get off by themselves in bands, generally ahead of the main body. 



11. Male seals have no teats that I have noticed, and those in the 

 cows are not easily seen. 



12. That in 1889 I got a cow-seal in Behring Sea about 40 miles from 

 St. Paul Island with a new-born pup. I got tlie pup and kept it on 

 board for two or three days. The mate killed it because it made so 

 much noise. I have taken pups from the cows, jmt them in the water, 

 and they would swim briskly away. 



13. That I have found in my six years' hunting four dead seals. 1 

 examined them all, but found no wounds on them, and think they died 

 natural deaths. 



14. That I get all seals I wound badly, but sometimes a seal is hurt 

 slightly and gets away. A seal that dies of his wounds floats, with 

 head and tail under water and back up. I have often wounded seals, 

 followed them up, and found them dead in this position. Very few 

 wounded seals that hunters do not get die. 



15. That I know of nothing that shows the seals to be decreasing. I 

 saw great numbers of seals this year on the coast, and our catch was 

 over the average, though we were behind the main body of seals. 



16. One day the last of May or 1st June this year off Sitka, the " Sea 

 Lion " was in company with the United States revenue-cutter " Corwin." 

 We were told that the " Corwin" had been sealing on the grounds there 

 some days before that. The seals on those grounds then were princi- 

 pally females heavy with pup making for the sea ahead of the main 

 body. We had been sealing there about the same time, and got more 

 females there than at any other ])art of the coast. 



And I make this solemn declaration conscientiously believing the 

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

 Oaths." 



(Signed) Wm. Fewings. 



Subscribed and declared by the said William Fewings before me, a 

 Notary Public duly commissioned, and residing and practising at the 

 city of Victoria, in the Province of British Columbia, this 25th day of 

 October, A. d. 1892. 



[SEAL.] (Signed) Arthur L. Belyea, 



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



