INVESTIGATION OF THE FUE-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 733 



Mr. Elliott. "In a mass about the 25th of July." No scattering 

 ones, no "fragments." "These pups return to the islands the follow- 

 ing year "practically in a mass about the 25th of July/' and then are 

 known as yearlings." 



He comes right here, and under oath, he tells the truth; but, he 

 romances to the Secretary in 1907, about "the slow-moving year- 

 lings. Why, gentlemen, the yearlings are the most alert, sinewy, lean 

 and muscular examples of the class. They can swim all around the 

 cows; jump over their backs, and dive under them, and they can and 

 do beat them to the islands. And they are the quickest, most active, 

 and alert on land. They lead all classes when a drive is made; they 

 show the least fatigue whether you go 1 mile, or 10 miles; and, in 

 the Water they are the incarnation of active, restless movement, 

 climbing on the rocks, diving, and going like swallows on the wind 

 under the water. "Slow-moving yearhngs. " He dropped that, when 

 he got here under oath, and he now tells the truth, to wit: 



While a few individuals might arrive among the first bachelors of the season, the 

 bulk of the yearlings arrive in a mass about the 25th of July, as stated. 



{Hearing No. 9, p. 413, March 11, 1912, House Committee on Expenditures, Depart- 

 ment of Commerce and Labor.) 



Therefore, you observe, Mr. Chairman, that those pups of this year 

 have a habit of naturally getting back next year as yearhngs, in 

 company with their mothers, if they have not been prevented from 

 so doing by the pressure of red-hot irons on their soft heads, when they 

 were only 6 weeks or 2 months old. 



The natives pick out yearlings on the hauling grounds during July 

 3 to 16, 1912; majority there are yearhngs. 



The presence of yearhngs declared on the hauling grounds of St, 

 Paul Island between July 3 to 16, 1912, by the selection of them as 

 " 1 and 2 year olds" made by tne natives who know the classes as 

 well as they know the seals themselves. 



Clark, to avoid this clear-cut proof of the fact that the yearlings 

 are not only present on the hauling grounds in July, from July 3 to 

 July 16, but are there in greater numbers than any other class, 

 jumbles the figures up with that given for the 2-year-olds and counts- 

 yearlings and 2-year-olds in one sum total; he separates the 2- 

 year-olds from the 3~3 T ear-olds, however, which is a more difficult 

 task by far than that of separating the 2-year-olds from the yearlings, 

 if there is any difficulty at all, for an expert like those natives. 



In 1912, 2,000 3-year-old seals were selected from the hauling 

 grounds on St. Pauls Island, and "sheared" or "branded," just as 

 they have been annually since the Hitchcock Kules of 1904 were 

 published. 



Mr. Geo. W. Clark, in his report for 1912, has made a record of the 

 work of selecting these animals day after day as it was done, and 

 reported on the grounds. He has had occasion several times to say 

 in regard to the knowledge possessed by the natives of the ages of 

 the seals, very much as Mr. Lembkey has testified, to wit : 



That these natives know what they are doing when directed by the lessees to kill 

 seals, the following testimony of Chief Special Agent Lembkey fully attests; it is 

 found on page 58 of manuscript notes of Ways and Means hearing, January 25, 1907; 



"Mr. Lembkey. I may say, Mr. Chairman, that the clubbers on the island are 

 expert in their business, and they can determine the weight of a skin on a live seal 

 to within a fraction of a pound. 



