676 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
the captains of the schooners respecting the nature and extent of this season’s catch 
of seals. 
The Undersigned would observe that after full inquiry through the Collector of 
Customs at the Port of Victoria, British Columbia, he submitted a Report upon the 
subject of this season’s catch, which your Excellency approved, on the 17th and 
19th November, 1890, and that the information thus conveyed to Her Majesty’s 
Government is supplemented by a further Report from the Undersigned based on 
additional particulars from the Collector of Customs at Victoria, under date the 
11th November. 
86 Paragraph 6 of the Report of the Admiralty from the Commander-in-chief 
on the Pacific Station, to which special attention is directed by the Admiralty, 
is as follows: 
‘They (the captains of the sealing vessels) also mentioned that two-thirds of their 
catch consisted of female seals, but that after the Ist July very few indeed were cap- 
tured ‘in pup,’ and that when sealing outside the Behring’s Sea round the coast on 
the way up (where this year the heaviest catches were made) they acknowledged 
that seals ‘in pup’ were frequently captured.” 
The Undersigned would remark upon this, that seal-hunters are in the habit of 
classifying seals as males and females when assorting their catches for the markets, 
regardless of the sexes of the seals; in other words, all seals of a standard size and 
over are classed as males, those under the standard size being classed as females. 
It does not appear from Rear-Admiral Hotham’s Report, that in his investigations 
any special examination was made as to the sexes, and the Undersigned would 
remark, in passing, that very careful investigation is necessary in order to distin- 
guish the male from the female seals. 
Reading paragraph 6, however, as applicable to the experience of the hunters pre- 
vious to their entering Behring’s Sea, the views conveyed by Rear-Admiral Hotham 
to the Admiralty are not inconsistent with information received from time to time 
by the Undersigned, to the effect that a considerable number of female seals and 
seals ‘‘in pup” have been taken outside of the Behring’s Sea, in the great waters of 
the Pacific Ocean, and along the coasts of British Columbia, California, and Wash- 
ington territory. The Undersigned upon this phase of the sealing industry, more- 
over, would remark that neither the United States nor any other nation has yet 
expressed willingness to consider a close season, covering the great waters of the 
Pacific Ocean outside of Behring’s Sea, so as to prevent the destruction of seal life. 
The Undersigned is of the opinion that, upon investigation by experts, it might 
possibly be found necessary, for the preservation of the fur-seal species, to establish 
Regulations in order to prevent this slaughter upon the coasts above mentioned. 
There is evidence that the slaughter of the females when “in pup” occurs while the 
seals are travelling slowly up the coasts on their way to the rookeries in Behring’s 
Sea, when resting, playing, or feeding, before they have begun the more immediate 
and direct journey to the breeding islands. ‘There is, however, it is submitted, no 
satisfactory evidence to establish that when the seals have once passed through the 
Aleutian Islands on their course to the breeding rookeries, that it is possible for 
hunters to shoot or Indians to spear them; on the contrary, there is reliable authority 
for stating that the journey through the Aleutian Islands and to the breeding grounds 
is direct and swift. It is known, moreover, that the pelagic sealers in Behring’s Sea 
obtain their catch chiefly from the ‘‘ bachelor” seals and the ‘‘ barren cow” seals, 
found at different points off the rookeries, at periods when the breeding seals are 
mostly confined to the islands, and the waters immediately surrounding the islands. 
No. 29. 
Sir J. Pauncefote to the Marquis of Salisbury.—( Received February 10.) 
{Telegraphic. } 
WASHINGTON, February 9, 1891. 
In an interview which I had to-day with Mr. Blaine he told me that 
he had been intending to write to me to ask whether he was to consider 
the diplomatic correspondence on the Behring’s Sea question suspended 
or closed in view of the legal proceedings in the “Sayward” case now 
before the Supreme Court. 
