358 INVESTIGATION OP THE EUE-SEAL INDUSTKY OF ALASKA. 



penditures in the Department of Com- blindly and stupidly deny it. They at- 

 merceand Labor.) tempt to set aside the Russian record by 



saying that the Russians then killed fe- 

 males as well as males and drove them up 

 to the shambles in equal numbers. 



The Russians did nothing of the sort. 

 They began the season early in June by 

 driving from the hauling grounds pre- 

 cisely as we do to-day and continued so to 

 drive all through the rest of the season; 

 they never went upon the rookeries and 

 drove off the females; they never have 

 done so since 1799. How, then, did the 

 females get into their drives? 



The females fell into these drives of the 

 Russians because that work was pro- 

 tracted through the whole season — from 

 June 1 to December 1. In this way the 

 drivers picked up many cows after 

 August 1 to 10, to the end of November 

 following, since some of these animals 

 during that period leave their places on 

 the breeding grounds and scatter out over 

 large sections of the adjacent hauling 

 grounds, so as to get mixed in here and 

 there with the young males. Thus the 

 Russians in driving across the flanks of the 

 breeding grounds, going from the hauling 

 grounds, during every August, Septem- 

 ber, October, and November, would 

 sweep up into their drives a certain 

 proportion of female seals which are then 

 scattered out from the rookery organiza- 

 tion and are ranging at will over chose 

 sections of the hauling grounds driven 

 from. What that proportion of this fe- 

 male life so driven was, in Russian time, 

 no man to-day can precisely determine. 

 From the best analysis I can make of it 

 I should say that the Russian female 

 catch in their drives never exceeded 30 

 per cent of the total number driven at any 

 time, and such times were rare, and that 

 it ranged as low as 5 per cent of female life 

 up to the end of August annually. (Hear- 

 ing No. 2, p. 65, June 8, 1911, House Com- 

 mittee on Expenditures in the Depart- 

 ment of Commerce and Labor.) 



IV. 



The sworn statements of Dr. Charles H. Townsend, who is one of the experts cited to the 

 United States Senate Committee on Conservation of National Resources, January 14, 

 1911, and to the House Committee on Expenditures in Department of Commerce and 

 Labor, June 9, 1911, by Secretary Charles Nagel, as his authority for killing seals in 

 violation of the law and regulations. 



Mr. Bowers. The advisory board, fur-seal service, consists of the following: 

 ******* 



Dr. Charles H. Townsend, director of the New York Aquarium, for many years 

 naturalist on the fisheries steamer Albatross, member of the Fur Seal Commissions of 

 1896 and 1897, and distinguished as a naturalist and field investigator. Dr. Town- 

 send made a special study extending over many years of our fur seals and pelagic 

 sealing. (Hearing No. 2, p. 109, June 9, 1911.) 



