INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 685 



which the natives ''men, women, and children," easily rim along 

 between the surf wash, and the bachelor seals on the sea margins of 

 the hauling grounds, and without the slightest use of clubs or force, 

 turn the timid hollus chickie, the older and vagrant bulls, and the 

 "pups" or " small seals" or yearlings, up and away from going pell- 

 mell into the water. 



I describe this very driving as it was done early in the season on St. 

 Paul, at length, in my Monograph of the Seal Islands, 1882, page 71, 

 and tell you that — 



During May and June large bodies of the young bachelor seals do not haul up on land 

 A r ery far from the water — a few rods at the most — and when these first arrivals are 

 sought after the natives, in capturing them, are obliged to approach slyly and run 

 quickly between the dozing seals and the surf, before they can take alarm and bolt 

 into the sea, etc. 



Therefore, Mr. Chairman, it was these self-confessed misstatements 

 of the work which Veniaminov was describing which caused me to 

 omit the worst of them, while, as for most of the lesser errors, I put 

 them in; as for instance, on page 143, (Mono. Seal Islands, 1882) 

 Veniaminov says: 



Females in the twelve or eighteen years next after their birth must become less in 

 numbers from natural causes and by the twenty-second year of their lives they must 

 become quite useless for breeding. 



and on page 141: 



It is without doubt that female seals do not begin to bear young before their fifth 

 year, i.e., the next four years after the one of their birth, and not in the third or fourth 

 year. This, however, is not the rule, but the exception. 



To make it more apparent that females can not bear young in their third year, 

 consider 2-year-old females and compare them with siekatchie (adult bulls) and cowa 

 (adult females) and it will be evident to all that this is impossible. 



Yet this queer, rambling nonsense is gravely cited to you by 

 Jordan and Clark as reliable Russian " authority," which I do not 

 admit. Do you wonder that I washed my hands of any indorsement 

 of it, on page 143 ? If you still have any doubt of the wisdom of my 

 action, I will add the following, and then I am sure, you will under- 

 stand the good reason. 



On page 141 of my Monograph of the Seal Islands, I quote Venia- 

 minov: 



Do the females bear young every year, and how often in their lives do they bring 

 forth? 



To settle this question is very difficult for it is impossible to make any observations 

 upon their movements; but I think that the females in their younger years (or prime) 

 bring forth every year, and as they get older, every other year; thus according to 

 people accustomed to them, they may each bring forth in their whole lives from ten to 

 fifteen young and even more, etc. 



Xow, Mr. Chairman, do you wonder why I made the following 

 review of this particular chapter of Veniaminov, on page 143, Mono- 

 graph of the Seal Islands, to wit: 



I translate this chapter of Veniaminov's without abridgment, although it is full 

 of errors, to show that while the Russians gave this matter evidently much thought at 

 headquarters, yet they failed to send some one on to the ground who, by first making 

 himself acquainted with the habits of the seals, etc. 



One word further with regard to this "killing of males and females 

 alike" on the breeding grounds which Mr. Clark wants you to believe 

 Veniaminov is "the authority for." I desire to draw your attention 

 to the following quotation which I have translated in my Monograph 



