You will note that the metal tags, totalling eight, which were recovered 
from male seals aged seven years and older were all of the hog size. (It 
should be mentioned that on female seals, which remain relatively small through- 
out life, the sheepesize tag Is satisfactory.) 
Let us now compare the largest tag, the cattle-size, with the foregoing 
two. The complete returns are not yet in at the time of writing (1949) but 
the indications are that the largest tag is the most efficient to date. The 
following table gives a comparison between the recoveries of medium-tagged 
seals and large-tagged seals. The comparison is difficult to make, because, 
first, one group was hot-iron branded and the other was not; second, the 
intensity of effort in recovering was perhaps greater for one group than the 
other, 
3-year males A=year males 
No. % Noe Z 
Seals recovered with medium 
tags, hog size (1941 series; 
5,000 male pups tagged). 76 1.5 60. 1.2 
Seals recovered with large 
_ tage, cattle size (1945 series; 
486 male pups tagged). 55 11.3 26 5.3 
Keeping in mind the qualifications we have just mentioned, you may reasonably 
conclude that the cattle-size tag is the most efficient of the three sizes 
thus far tested, 
Relative merits of selected tag locations on the body,--When Wilke and 
Banner tag ’ pups in ey varie @ position of the tag, as 
follows: (3) base of fore flipper on or near the boundary of the black skin 
and the fur, (2) hind flipper through interdigital web, and (3) hind flipper 
over a digit, usually the fifth. When we looked at specimens three and four 
years later we found that tag losses from the hind flippers were twice as 
great as from the fore, 


194d 1945 
Age of seal in years 3 4 
Noe & Noe 4 
Tag intact on fore flipper 96 «81 136 76 
Tag scar only on fore flipper 22 19 42 2h, 
Tag intact on hind flipper 14 48 16 Al 
Tag scar only on hind flipper 15 52 23 59 
