486 INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



and you call extra small pups yearlings, you do not want to say that 

 that statement was not correct ? 



Mr. Clark. I have asked on three or four occasions for the privi- 

 lege of presenting this matter in such a way that I can protect my 

 statements. You ask me questions which take up the matter by 

 piecemeal 



The Chairman (interposing). Pardon me, but it is not my pur- 

 pose to bring it up by piecemeal. You brought this particular piece 

 into the hearing by stating that so many extra small pups had been 

 taken since 1904, and I want to bring out your reasons for making 

 that statement. 



Mr. Clark. I can take that up. I was prevented from taking it 

 up at the time we started that discussion yesterday. 



The Chairman. Nobody prevented } T ou from doing so, and nobody 

 will prevent you from doing so, but we want you to tell the truth to 

 the committee.. 



Mr. Clark. I am trying to tell the truth, and if I am guarded in my 

 statements it is because I want to tell the truth and nothing but the 

 truth. 



The Chairman. Well, we will let it pass at that. 



Mr. Clark. Now, fourteenth, as to the alleged killing of females: 

 The odiom supposed to lie in the killing of yearlings has rested in the 

 claim that the yearlings mingled male and female on the hauling 

 grounds. This is not the fact. The yearlings, as a class, do not 

 come to the hauling grounds. A few of the older animals, that is to 

 say, the earlier born animals, approximating two years old in develop- 

 ment, appear on the hauling grounds late in the killing season. These 

 have on numerous tests been found to be males. The number is not 

 great. A careful scrutiny of from 1 ,200 to 1,500 bachelors from Reef 

 hauling ground in 1913, handled with this end in view, disclosed that 

 perhaps one in fifteen, or, perhaps, only one in twenty, were yearlings. 

 These few animals were males, and it would not be possible in any 

 event for the yearling females to exist on the hauling grounds. That 

 is true, because the older bachelors would worry them to death. The 

 bachelor seal has full sexual development, and to have female yearlings 

 mixing in there would mean constant worriment to them, and they 

 do not go there. The same thing is true of the two-year-old cows. 

 Both classes of young females find their place and companionships 

 among the pups and older females. 



The ( haerman. Let me ask you right there: Can a man easily dis- 

 tinguish a male from a female when they are 1-year old? 



Mr. Clark. You can find out very readily by snaring them and 

 turning them over <>n their backs and examining them. 



The Chairman. But you can not do it by looking at them on the 

 ground ? 



Mr. Clark. No, sir: and we did not depend on that. 



The Chairman', is there any difference in size? 



Mr. Clark. No, sir: not that I know of. We snared them with 

 ropes and drew them out to examine them, and did not depend on any 

 judgment as to sizes. 



Mr. Watkens. What do y< u mean by bachelors? 



Mr. Clarke. A young male seal under 4 years old. Anything con- 

 sidered killable would be a bachelor seal, and the quota would be 

 made up from the bachelors. We refer to bachelor seals as distin- 



