APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. Tom 
No. 93. 
Mr. Phelps to the Marquis of Salisbury.—( Received February 18.) 
LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, 
London, February 17, 1888. 
My Lorp: I have the honour to inclose a printed copy of an impor- 
tant note relative to the Alaska seal fisheries which I have just received 
from my Government. It has reference to the proposal for some Inter- 
national Regulations at those fisheries which I had the honour to submit 
in general terms to your Lordship in a personal interview on the 17th 
November last, and which I then promised to ask my Government to 
state more precisely. 
As the matter is one that, as it appears to the United States Govern- 
ment, should be dealt with immediately, and in which I presume both 
Governments will readily concur, I shall be glad of the honour of an 
interview with your Lordship at as early a day next week as may be 
convenient and agreeable to you, when the proposed restrictions and 
the method of carrying them into effect can be considered. 
I have, &c. 
(Signed) E. J. PHELPS. 
{Inclosure 1 in No. 93.] 
My. Bayard to Mr. Phelps. 
DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, February 7, 1888. 
Sir: I have received your despatch of the 12th November last, containing an 
account of your interview with Lord Salisbury of the preceding day, in which his 
Lordship expressed acquiescence in my proposal of an agreement between the 
173 United States and Great Britainin regard to the adoption of concurrent tegula- 
tions for the preservation of fur seals in Behring’s Sea from extermination by 
destruction at improper seasons and by improper methods by the citizens of either 
country. 
In response to his Lordship’s suggestion that this Government submit a sketch of 
a system of regulations for the purpose indicated, it may be expedient, before making 
a definite proposition, to describe some of the conditions of seal life. And for this 
purpose it is believed that a concise statement as to that part of the life of the seal 
which is spent in Behring Sea will be sufficient. 
All those who have made astudy of the seals in Behring’s Sea are agreed that, on an 
average, from five to six months—that is to say, from the middle or towards the end 
of spring till the middle or end of October—are spent by them in those waters in 
breeding and in rearing their young. During this time they have their rookeries on 
the Islands of St. Pauland St. George, which constitute the Pribyloff group and belong 
to the United States, and on the Commander Islands, which belong to Russia. But 
the number of animals resorting to the latter group is small in comparison with that 
resorting to the former. The rest of the year they are supposed to spend in the open 
sea south of the Aleutian Islands. 
Their migration northward, which has been stated as taking place during the 
spring and till the middle of June, is made through the numerous passes in the long 
chain of the Aleutian Islands; above which the courses of their travel converge chiefly 
to the Pribyloff group. During this migration the female seals are so advanced in 
pregnancy that they generally give birth to their young, which are commonly called 
pups, within two weeks after reaching the rookeries. Between the time of the birth of 
the pups and of the emigration of the seals from the islands in the autumn the females 
are occupied in suckling their young; and by far the largest part of the seals found 
at a distance from the islands in Behring’s Sea during the summer and early autumn 
are females in search of food, which is made doubly necessary to enable them to 
suckle their young as well as to support a condition of renewed pregnancy, which 
begins in a week or a little more after their delivery. 
The male seals, or bulls, as they are commonly called, require little food while on 
the islands, where they remain guarding their harems, watching the rookeries, and 
sustaining existence on the large amount of blubber which they have secreted beneath 
their skins and which is gradually absorbed during the five or six succeeding months. 
