APPENDIX TO COUNTER-CASE -OF GREAT BRITAIN. 655 



Declaration of Victor Jacohsen, 



Dominion of Canada, 



Province of British GolumMa^ City of Victoria, 



I, Victor Jacobsen, of tlie city of Victoria, in tlie Province of British 

 Columbia, do solemnly declare as follows: 



1. I have been eleven years master of vessels engaged in the sealing 

 business. 



2. I Lave been on only three vessels, the "Mountain Chief," the 

 " Minnie," and the "Mary Ellen" this year. 



3. I have always had Indians with me, and some years have had 

 white men. 



4. Every year 1 have hunted myself, going out in the stern-boat as a 

 rule. 



5. I have never lost many seals by siuking, and no good hunter does, 

 for we can always tell whether a seal will sink or not if shot in a cer- 

 tain place. 



84 6. 1 got more than thirty seals this year, and lost one by sink- 



ing, and lost it only because I, instead of gaflfing it myself, gave 

 the gaff to the boat-puller while I got ready to shoot another seal. 



7. Last year I got very few seals, but the year before I got 308 seals, 

 and lost by siuking not more than 6 or 7. 



8. Very few seals are so badly wounded that we don't get them, and 

 they then die afterwards, for if wounded we keep after them until we 

 get them, and if we don't get them they are not likely to be badly 

 enough wounded to die. A hunter feels worse about losing a seal he 

 lias killed than if lie misses fifty. 



9. Major Williams, an Agent of the United States Government, 

 asked me about this last spring, and, as nearly as I can remember, I 

 told him just what I have said now, and he took what I have said down. 



10. I don't remember figures for other years, but the percentage lost 

 was about the same. 



11. I have seen seals travelling in schools, both south of Cape Flat- 

 tery and north to Behring Sea. At such times they are very difficult 

 to get, and if fifteen or twenty are together it is impossible to get any 

 of them. 



12. The large males and females always travel together, and the 

 young seals are, as a rule, scattered all over, and, as a rule, behind the 

 older seals. 



13. I saw as many seals this year as last year, and two years ago I 

 saw as many seals as at any time during the past five or six years, but 

 not so many, I think, as when I first began hunting seals. Seals are 

 more scattered now, and much wilder and harder to get. Formerly we 

 could tell pretty well where the seals were, but now they are so scat- 

 tered that we have to look for them. 



14. I never noticed that male seals had teats. 



15. My experience has been that about three out of five seals taken 

 on the coast are females, and about the same in Behring Sea. 



16. At first all the Indians I had used spears solely; they would not 

 allow one another to carry guns, as they said they would frighten the 

 seals, and for four or five years nothing but spears were used, but now 

 they use both guns and spears; they spear the seal if they can, but if 

 they cannot, they shoot it. 



17. Major Williams asked me last spring much the same questions 

 as I have been asked now, and I gave him the same answers. What 1 

 Sftid was written down and read over to me, and I signed the paper. 



