SEX OF SALTED SKINS. 245 
fur merchants in London to examine the skins as they arrive from the pelagic sealers, at Messrs. 
C. M. Lampsons & Sons’, of 64 Queen street, in the city of London, at the Hudson Bay Company’s 
premises in Lime street, and at Messrs. Culverwell & Brooks’s, at St. Mary Axe. “These are the only 
firms to whom seal skins have been sent for sale during the last few years. I inspect them in order 
to determine the quality and condition of the skins, and it is my business to report to the merchants 
from time to time the quality of the skins, and the merchants act on my report. From my personal 
inspection in this way I am able to say that fully 80 per cent of the skins which have arrived from 
the pelagic sealers during the last three years are the skins of female seals, Of the 135,000, or 
thereabouts, of the pelagic northwest catch of 1894, fully 120,000 came under my notice and were 
examined by me; and of the 102,000, or thereabouts, of the like catch of 1895, about 100,000 came 
under my notice and were examined by me; and of the 70,000 forming the like pelagic catch of 1896, 
the whole parcel came under my notice and were examined by me. 
2. There is absolutely no difficulty whatever in distinguishing the sex of the adult seals, as, 
apart from all other distinctions (and there are several, as for instance, a difference in thesize and shape 
of the head and also in the color), the distinction in the breast is very marked, those of the females 
being very large and prominent, and those of the males hardly distinguishable. It requires no expert 
to distinguish the sex. In niost instances the hair round the nipples of the female seals has been 
worn off by the young pups. 
The only reason there is a doubt as to the sex of the remaining 20 per cent of the skins is that 
about this proportion are the skins of very young animals in which, the breasts and heads not being 
fully developed, the sex is not so easily distinguishable, but this only applies to young pups and not 
in any way to adult seals. : 
There is no difficulty whatever in identifying the Bering Sea seals from those caught on the coast 
of Japan and round or in the vicinity of the Copper Islands. - 
And I make this solemn declaration, conscientiously believing the same to be true, and by virtue 
of the provisions of the statutory declarations act of 1835. 
E. WISCHHUSEN. 
Declared at No. 138 New North road, in the county of London, on this 26th day of October, 1897, 
before me. : 
JOHN VENN, Notary Public. 
Nore.—Attached thereto are the official certificates of John Venn, notary public, of the city of 
London, and William M. Osborne, consul-general of the United States, with their official seals. 
I, Walter Edward Martin, of 4 Lambeth Hill, in the city of London, member of the firm of 
C. W. Martin & Sons, of the same place, fur dyers and dressers, solemnly, sincerely, and truly declare 
as follows: 
I am a British subject. I have been in the business of dyeing and dressing fur-seal skins in 
London about twenty-five years, and have personally handled many hundreds of thousands of such 
skins, and I have in consequence a special knowledge of seal skins. 
T have at various times made a special examination of the skins of the northwest (pelagic) catch 
of seals (a very large number of which come through my firm’s hands) with a view to ascertaining 
whether they are the skins of male or female seals, and I say that of the seals caught,in the Bering 
Sea and in the North Pacific Ocean by the pelagic sealers fully 80 per cent of them are female seals, 
and I believe a still larger proportion. The remaining 20 per cent are mostly skins of young pups in 
which the sex is not very distinguishable, and a few large bulls, not more than about 3 per cent of 
the entire parcel. 
With regard to adult seals, there is no difficulty whatever in detecting the skins of males and 
the skins of females. The breasts are very prominent in the female seals, and it requires no expert 
to detect which is the skin of a male seal and which the skin of a female seal, and very often round 
the breasts of the females the far has been worn away. The regulations of the arbitrators, made in 
August, 1893, at Paris, with regard to pelagic sealing have not tended to in any way diminish the 
proportion of female seals to males killed by the pelagic sealers, and the large majority of the skins 
of the pelagic catch still bear traces of the seals having been killed by means of shot. 
There can be no doubt whatever that a continuation of the present system of slaughtering such 
a large proportion of the female seals in the open ocean, with the consequential death of such a large 
proportion of pups, as is admitted by Prof. D’Arcy Thompson in his recent report to be due to pelagic 
