584 INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



Mr. Clark. Yes, sir. I am not the secretary of the board, how- 

 ever. 



The Chairman. Do you know Isaac Liebes ? 



Mr. Clark. No, sir; I do not. 



Mr. Stephens. With reference to mistakes that have been made 

 in clubbing the seals, you stated yesterday that some of these smaller 

 ones were killed inadvertently because of the fact that the clubbers 

 in using the clubs could not tell the head of a yearling from the head 

 of a 2-year-old. I believe that was about your statement, that 

 sometimes they were inadvertently killed that way. 



Mr. Clark. During the food killing hi the fall, when the yearlings 

 are more numerous — that is, after the commercial killing, these 

 yearlings appear to some extent, and in accounting for the killing of 

 the few that are admitted — I mentioned that in the bunches of seals 

 which come up before the clubbers, the animals huddle together, the 

 clubbers must knock them on the head. The heads do not vary as 

 much as the bodies and perhaps the head of one animal may be 

 struck when another was intended. The head may seem to disclose 

 an animal of larger size than it really turns out to be. Those are 

 very infrequent accidents, however. 



Mr. Stephens. You also said you knew that the females were not 

 killed for the reason that the seals from which it was intended to take 

 the hides, the commercial skins, were driven to what is called the 

 killing ground, and that each one was lassoed and examined before 

 taking. How do yon harmonize those two statements? 



Mr. Clark. Of course, those things could not occur. The lassoing 

 and examination I \v;is describing represented a set experiment by 

 Dr. Jordan and his party in 1896 and 1897 in order to determine the 

 question whether there were females among the bachelors on the 

 hauling grounds. It could not be applied to commercial killings. 

 The only way to handle a fur seal in determining the sex is by throwing 

 a rope around its neck and twisting it until it cuts through the fur 

 and gives a grip on the animal. But that experiment was to deter- 

 mine whether females were among the bachelors on the hauling 

 ground, and the showing was that they were all males. 



Mr. Stephens. 'Was that the case of the 205 skins you said you 

 examined to ascertain whether the breadth made as much difference 

 as the length of the skin ? 



Mr. Clark. No. Those 205 were 2-year animals: we killed them 

 in the regular food killing, you know. 



Mr. Stephens. You stated vou measured how many of those 

 hides I 



Mr. Clark. Two hundred and five of them. 



Mr. Stephens. How many examples did you give of the width? 



Mr. Clark. Possibly six or eight. 



Mr. Stephens. Those examples were picked from the 205 indis- 

 criminately, were they? Did you take them as they came? 



Mr. Clark. Yes: I did not spend any time on the matter. I 

 went over it hastily. This matter might be carried further and 

 something worked out of it. you know. I have not had any time to 

 do that. I looked into this hastily and picked them out. 



Mr. Stepukn^. Would it not have been fair to examine all these 

 skins and make a division J 



