APPENDIX TO COUNTER-CARE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 709 



g'un-boat, after we had been sealino; one clay, and captured twenty «eals. 



2. I hunted with eitlier gun or rifle in all cases, and I would not lose 

 more than 5 seals in 100 that I would hit. The average range would be 

 about 2") to 30 yards, and last year, in one day, I remember getting 52 

 seals olf Hakodate Straits with the loss of only 2 or 3, and this year, in 

 the 20 seals I got, I do not believe I lost any, as I was able to get up 

 very close to them. 



3. I iind that seals travel in schools, and for the most part are mixed 

 as to ages and sexes. 



4. Seals are more alert when in schools, and a pregnant seal is more 

 wary than any other. 



5. In my catches 1 have as a rule got more females than males, and 

 frequently taken cows witliout pups or milk. 



G. I do not notice a material difference in the number met with from 

 the time I began hunting until now, but the older seals are becoming 

 more wary and difficult to approach. 



7. I can always distinguish a male from a female in the water. Very 

 few old bulls are killed by us, and I have never i)icked up a dead seal 

 or "stinker" in my life. 



8. Some time last April I was examined on this subject in this city by 

 a man who was represented to me as a Government official from Wash- 

 ington; there was also present a representative of Liebes and C^-o. My 

 evidence was taken under oath, and I told them substantially what I 

 have said here. 



9. In the examination previously referred to I was asked if it were 

 not true that hunters lost two out of every three seals shot. I said that 

 was not so. I was also asked if some very poor hunters did not go out 

 and lose a great many, and I said, "Of course, a poor hunter would 

 lose a good few." 



10. I do not know of any schooners having- taken seals in Behring 

 Sea this year other than those that have been seized, and if there had 

 been I would likely have heard of it. 



11. In my oj^inion the Asiatic skins are better than the Pribyloff 

 Island skins, the fur being longer, thicker, and darker. 



12. I think that some protection should be giveu the seal, but any 

 restrictions made should extend to the islands. 



13. I have not been paid anything, nor has anything been promised 

 me, in consideration of my making this statement. 



(Signed) W. Hermann. 



Subscribed and sworn to before me, this 23rd day of November, 1892. 

 [seal.] (Signed) Lincoln Sonntag, Notary Public. 



William Hermann, of San Francisco, states that two years ago (1890) 

 he was in the Okhotsk Sea, and bis schooner got 283 seals on the Island 

 of St. lona, and altogether 700 seals were got there that year by three 

 schooners, and last year he was there and got 551 in the schooner 

 "Arctic." These were got hauled up on the rocks, and were first dis- 

 covered by Captain Pine, of the "Arctic," in 1889. Eight years ago 

 Captain Peterson, of the schooner " Diana," of Yokohama, was there, 

 and there were no seals there. 



