INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 509 



Mr. McGuiee. What can you say from your observations as to 

 those pups being on the island when you went there the following 

 year, in 1913; I mean the pups which you had branded in the pre- 

 vious year ? 



Mr. Clare:. I did not find them. 



Mr. McGuire. Did you look for them? 



Mr. Clark. I looked with very great eagerness for them. I had 

 these bachelors on the reef hauling ground driven up, because the 

 largest number of pups were branded on Reef Rookery. I searched 

 for them many times; on one occasion we drove up all the animals 

 and had them paid off, so that we could examine them more minutely. 

 "We found one with a perfect brand, and we snared it and measured its 

 length and its girth and photographed it. Unfortunately, I have not 

 a copy of that photograph here, but it is in connection with the atlas 

 in my 1913 report to the Bureau of Fisheries. That gives an actual 

 picture of the yearling seal 



Mr. McGuire. You know that was a yearling seal ? 



Mr. Clark. Yes; that is the only yearling seal that anybody up 

 to that time had any right to swear to. I had previously studied 

 a yearling seal in Golden Gate Park in 1910, an animal was brought 

 down there and put in a tank in Golden Gate Park. I went to see it 

 as often as I could, and in August, 1911, when Mr. Marsh, the nat- 

 uralist, was going up to the islands he and I inspected that animal 

 and measured it. We got its length. It was then 1 year and 

 1 month old. 



Mr. McGuire. That was the one ? 



Mr. Clark. That was one the age of which I was sure about, be- 

 cause it had always been in the same place the whole year. 



Mr. McGuire. Do you remember its measurements ? 



Mr. Clark. It was 36 inches in length. This one I caught in 1913, 

 this branded animal, of which we are absolutely certain, its length 

 was 36^ inches. Those are the only animals I have seen to the 

 measurements of which I could swear as being yearlings, because I 

 knew the history of the animals. 



Mr. McGuire. Then the only difference between the length of the 

 one which had been in captivity all the time and the one which you 

 had branded the previous year was a quarter of an inch in favor of the 

 one which had not been in captivity? 



Mr. Clark. Yes. 



Mr. McGuire. One was 36 and the other was 36| inches in length? 



Mr. Clark. Yes. 



Mr. McGuire. You say 36 inches was the measurement of the one 

 in captivity. What does that measurement include? 



Mr. Clark. It was taken from the tip of the nose to the root of the 

 tail, which would be the usual method of measuring the length of 

 the animal. 



Mr. McGuire. How much of that would be taken off for a skin? 



Mr. Clark. In 1912, in case 205 skins, which we measured, the 

 residue left there was about 4 inches average. 



Mr. McGuire. Now, at what time in 1912 did you do this brand- 

 ing? What dates? If you have not the exact dates immediately 

 available, can you give them approximately? 



Mr. Clark. It was the first week in September. I have recorded 

 here on the 6th of September a reference to the branding; that the 



