INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 483 



guayan preserves. There is also a catch of fur seals on the Commander 

 Islands, which belong to Russia. They are all marketed in very 

 much the same way as ours. That was the basis of my reply, of 

 course. 



Now, therefore, discussing the effect of the killing of yearlings: 

 There would have been nothing deadly about the killing of these 

 animals if it had taken place. It makes no difference whether the 

 superfluous male is killed at the age of 3 or of 2 or of 1 or of 4 years, 

 so far as the breeding life of the herd is concerned. There are two 

 legitimate grounds of criticism of the killing of yearlings and 2-year- 

 olds, if it should occur. I mean that if the killing of yearlings 

 should occur, there are legitimate grounds of complaint against it. 

 In the first place, it is economically wasteful to kill an animal below 

 the age at wliich it gives the best skin, namely, 3 years. In the second 

 )lace, in the past those mistaken killings of yearling seals and the 

 ulling of 2-year-olds have obscured a scientific fact of wliich the 

 commission in 1896 and 1897 was very anxious to have a solution of, 

 namely, the actual increment of annual gain in the breeding stock 

 of the herd. That was quite a vital question — how fast does the herd 

 increase in its normal state. If the killing had been limited to 3-vear- 

 olds or 2-year-olds, that is to say, to animals of one age, then the 

 quota of skins taken by the leasing company would have been the 

 exact measure of the number of 3-year-old cows which came to the 

 breeding grounds each year to deliver their first pups. That is to 

 say, the sexes are born in equal numbers; they suffer like vicissi- 

 tudes when out at sea in the first two migrations, and the number of 

 females that would return would be equal to the number of males that 

 would return during each of the three years. Now, if the killings 

 were limited to 3-year-old seals, the number taken would be a definite 

 measure of the increase of the herd. That was formerly an important 

 question, and that is one reason why I criticized the killing of 1909. 

 From the point of view of an investigator, it obscured the question of 

 the natural increase of the herd. That is no longer important now, 

 because I counted every pup that was born in 1912; counted them 

 again in 1913, and the difference between those two counts is a better 

 measure of the increment of gain than would have been obtained 

 by the other method. Therefore, my opinion now is that it would 

 be economically satisfactory to take not only the 3-year-olds but 

 the 2-year-olds, because the trade can use 2-year-old skins for 

 demands for which a 3-year-old skin would be too large. 



The Chairman. In a former hearing before this committee, 

 Mr. Lembkey was questioned about the catch in 1910, and I call 

 your attention to his statement on page 904 of Hearing No. 14. This 

 is what Mr. Lembkey said at page 904 about the catch of 1910: 



A summary of the classification of the 12,920 salted fur-seal skins of the catch of 

 1910, sold by Lampson & Co., is as follows: Smalls, 132; large pups, 995; middling 

 pups, 4,011; small pups, 6,205; extra small pups, 1,528; extra small pups, 11; faulty, 38. 



Now, according to this statement 1,528 yearlings must have been 

 killed in 1910. 



Mr. Clark. I would ask you to call upon Mr. Lembkey to explain 

 that, because I know nothing about that. 



The Chairman. If extra small pups are yearlings, then, according 

 to this statement, 1,528 yearlings were killed. 



