The Alaskan fur seal breeds on the Pribilof Islands, Alaska. The seals emerge from the water to certain favored hauling-out places in May and June. They leave the Islands in November to begin their long migration. The bulls spend the winter off the coast of Alaska south of the Aleutians but the females and young travel south to the ocean off California. In the spring they start north, arriving off the coast of Washington in February, March and April. Young, rarely adults, are washed up on the ocean beaches of Washington (Scheffer, 1939: 43). The United States Government, by international treaty, manages the fur seal herds on a sustained yield basis and pelagic sealing by independent hunters is prohibited. Indians are allowed to take the fur seals on migration but are subject to certain restrictions. Modern boats, outboard motors and guns are prohibited. Indians living on the coast of Washington hunt the fur seals from dugout canoes. The weapons are double-headed harpoons with long cedar shafts. One harpoon head is at the tip of the shaft and the other is on a short fork that projects downward and forward at a 30° angle from the main shaft. The harpoon is thrown with the aid of hand grips at the end of the shaft. The seal is recovered by rawhide lines connected to the harpoon heads. The hunters leave shore at dawn and travel ten to twenty miles from land, at which distance the seal herds are usually encountered. The hunting is dangerous work and is carried on only by skilled and brave men. Relatively calm weather is required. The flesh of the seals is eaten and the skins sold. Schultz and Rafn (1936: 13-15) examined the stomachs of 41 fur seals taken within 30 miles of La Push, Washington, in March, April and May, 1930. Food found included squids, shrimps, herring and lampreys. =Phoca vitulina richardii= (Gray) Hair seal or harbor seal _Halicyon richardii_ Gray, Proc. Zoöl. Soc. London, p. 28, 1864. _Phoca richardii_ Allen, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 16:491, December 12, 1902. _Phoca richardii richardii_ Miller, U. S. Nat. Mus. Bull., 128:164, April 29, 1924. _Phoca vitulina richardii_ Doutt, Ann. Carnegie Mus., 29:117, May 12, 1942. _Type._--Described from a specimen obtained at the Fraser River, British Columbia, probably on March 23, 1861, by C. B. Wood and another obtained by Wood at Queen Charlotte Sound, British Columbia, in 1862 (see Scheffer and Slipp, 1944: 374); type in British Museum of Natural History. _Distribution._--Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan De Fuca and the coast of Washington, extending at times up the Columbia River to The Dalles. Has been recorded in Lake Washington, Seattle (Bonham, 1942: 76).