APPENDIX TO COUNTER-CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 677 



tLose that were badly crippled, not more than 20 were destroyed that I 

 did not get. Had I had any experience I would have lost fewer, as 

 after we got into Behring Sea I lost none. Last year I only hunted on 

 the coast; I killed 127 seals, losing 2 only. This year I got 344, and 

 lost .3; these were travelling and the water was rough, or 1 would not 

 have lost them. I don't think that any good hunter ought to lose more 

 than I did. Very few seals badly enough wounded to die escape. 

 Shot will not kill a seal if it strikes it in the body when more than 40 

 yards away. I shoot at a sleeping seal when from 14 to 18 yards from 

 it. Very few rifles are used now. Abreast of Cross Sound this year 

 the seal were more plentiful than I ever saw them before, but they were 

 veiy wild. In March 1891 I saw seals in schools ofl' Gray's Harbour, 

 below Cape Flattery. I saw about 60, and the other boats reported 

 having seen about as many. Male and female seals travel together, and 

 with them the yearlings. Along the coast there are about as many 

 females as males, and in tlie early part of the season in Behring Sea 

 there are about as many males as females. Seals eat squid, salmon, and 

 cod; they prefer squid to anything else. Except the seized schooners 

 I have not heard of schooners having gone into Behring Sea this year, 

 and believe that no others went. I went to the Kussian side this year; 

 we saw two seals south of the 172nd Pass about 20th July. 



I saw many more seals this year than ever before. I hunted in about 

 the same places this year, and at about the same times. Seals are 

 harder to get when in bunches than when alone. I have on two occa- 

 sions opened seals that had two pups in their wombs. When a seal is 

 travelling and is not frightened, he moves very slowly, and will often 

 stop to rest. On a warm day they do not "travel" at all. 



I have on two occasions seen seals cohabiting in Behring Sea; we 

 were between 30 and 40 miles away from the islands both times. The 

 seals were both killed on each occasion. The females were, I should 

 say, 2 or 3 years old, and there was no sign of their having had young. 

 The seals seemed to be holding one another by the help of their flip- 

 pers, and were sometimes on the surface and sometimes under water; 

 their hinder parts were out of the water more than once, and I could 

 see that there was no doubt about what they were doing; we were 

 quite close to the seals when we saw them; this was the case both 

 times. 



When we are pulling towards seals and are near them, we pull very 

 slowly and easily, so that altliough close to the seals when we first saw 

 them it must have taken two or three minutes to reach them. I was 

 about 14 yards from the seals the first time I saw them doing this, and 

 about the same distance the next. I have heard other hunters say the 

 same thing. 



(Signed) Thos. Garner. 



Sworn before me, at Victoria, this 29th day of September, A. D. 1892. 

 [seal,] (Signed) H. Dallas Helmcken, 



A Commissioner for talcing Affidavits in the Supreme Court 



of British Columbia, and a Notary Public in and 

 for the Province of British Columbia. 



