KERGUELEN LAND.

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This large island, also known as Desolation Island, which lies in the southern Indian Ocean, in about latitude 49° S., and in about longitude 69 E., has long been celebrated for the great numbers of seaelephants taken there. It has also furnished a small supply of furseals. Sealing began here as early as 1830, and has continued till the present time, mainly for sea-elephants. Mr. H. M. Moseley, of the Challenger expedition, states that in January, 1874, two of the whaling schooners then at the island "killed over seventy fur-seals on one day and upwards of twenty on another at some small islands off Howes Foreland." "It is a pity," he adds, "that some discretion is not exercised in killing the animals. The sealers in Kerguelen Land kill all they can find." (Notes by a naturalist on the Challenger, p. 189.) Respecting its still more recent history, the following may be cited from the affidavit of Mr. George Comer, who spent five months there in the winter of 1883 and 1884, obtaining six seals. He says further: "About 1850 this island was visited by an American who practically cleaned off the seals. The captain I shipped with, Joseph Fuller, visited the island in 1880 and took 3,600 seals, practically all there were; and this was the increase for thirty years from 1850." Heard Island, about 300 miles south of Kerguelen Land, which has been a noted hunting ground for sea-elephants, appears to have never been much of a fur-seal resort.

BORDER'S ISLAND, ANTIPODES ISLANDS, BOUNTY ISLANDS, AUCKLAND ISLANDS, ETC.

About the beginning of the present century the occurrence of fur and hair-seals in considerable numbers along the Southwest Pacific. southwestern coast of Australia and in the vicinity of

Border's Island.

Tasmania and New Zealand was made known by Cook, Bass, Flinders, Anson, Peron, Ross, and other early navigators. A little later, stimulated by these reports, the adventurous sealers discovered an apparently almost inexhaustible supply of these animals on the numerous small islands off the southeastern coast of New Zealand. Border's Island was discovered by Captain Pendleton, of the American brig Union, of New York, in 1802. Although he reached here toward the end of the sealing season, he secured some 14,000 fur-seal skins. He also visited Antipodes Islands, where he left a crew of men to take seals and await the return of the vessel from Sydney, New South Wales, which, however, was lost on a subsequent cruise to the Feejee Islands. On the receipt of this sad news at Sydney, "Mr. Lord chartered a ship and proceeded with her to the island of Antipodes. At this place the officers and crew whom Captain Pendleton had left there had taken and cured rising of 60,000 prime fur-seal skins, a parcel of very superior quality." (Fanning, Voyages, etc., p. 326.)

Antipodes Island.

Polack states that Macquaric Island was discovered by a sealing master in 1811, who procured there a cargo of 80,000 Macquaric Island. seal skins. (Polack, New Zealand, II, p. 376.)

Mr. A. W. Scott states, on information furnished by a professional sealer named Morris: "In New South Wales the sealing trade was at

For a detailed compilation of these early accounts, see Clark (J. W.) in Proc. Zoöl. Soc. London, 1875, pp. 653-658.

his height from 1810 to 1820; the first systematic promoters of which were the Sydney firms of Cable, Lord, & Underwood, Riley & Jones, Birnie, and Hoak & Campbell.' To so great an extent was this indiscriminate killing carried that in two years (1814-1815) no less than 400,000 skins were obtained from Penantepod, or Antipodes Island alone, and necessarily collected in so hasty a manner that very many of them were imperfectly cured. The ship Pegassus took home 100,000 of these in bulk, and on her arrival in London the skins, having heated during the voyage, had to be dug out of the hold, and were sold as manure, a sad and reckless waste of life." (Scott, Mammalia, Recent and Extinct, Pinnata, pp. 18, 19.) According to other authorities, the New Zealand sealing industry ceased to be a paying investment prior to 1863.

Respecting the Auckland Islands, Morrell says: "In the year 1823, Capt. Robert Johnson, in the schooner Henry, of New Auckland Islands. York, took from this island and the surrounding islets about 13,000 of as good fur-seal skins as ever were brought to the New York market. Although the Auckland Isles once abounded with numerous herds of fur and hair-seals, the American and English seamen engaged in this business have made such clean work of it as scarcely to leave a breed; at all events, there was not one fur-seal to be found on the 4th of January, 1830." (Morrell, Voyages, p. 363)

Early in the present century many fur and hair-seals were taken from the Bounty Isles, near the southern end of New Bounty Isles. Zealand; from the Snares and the Traps, from Stewarts, Chatham, and Campbell's Islands, and also from other islands to the Southward of New Zealand; but at most of these points they ap pear to have become very soon practically exterminated. A few survived the general slaughter, and in recent years, under the protection of the Government of the Colony of New Zealand, have so far increased that there have been of late years a small annual catch of furseals in the New Zealand waters, amounting to from 1,000 to 2,000 per year. (Affidavit of Emil Teichmann.)

ST. PAUL AND AMSTERDAM ISLANDS.

These islands, situated in the southern Indian Ocean (about lat. 38° S., long. 77° 35' E.), midway between the Cape of Good Hope and Australia, were first visited by Capt. Henry Cox in May, 1789. He says: "On first landing, we found the shore covered with such multitude of seals that we were obliged to disperse them before we got out of the boat. . . . We procured here a thousand seal skins of a very superior quality, while we remained at the island of Amsterdam, besides several casks of good oil for our binnacles and other purposes." (Cox Voy. to Teneriffe, Amsterdam, etc., p. 10.)

Lord Macartney, who touched at Amsterdam in 1773, found five men here collecting seal skins for the Canton market. He says of the seals: "In the summer months they come ashore, sometimes in droves of 800 or 1,000 at a time, out of which 100 are destoyed, that number being as many as 5 men can skin and peg down to dry in the course of a day. Most of those which come ashore are females, in the proportion of more than thirty to one male." (Sir G. Staunton, Acc. of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, I, p. 210.)

I find no definite references to sealing at these islands in later years,

but it is probable they were not overlooked by the enterprising sealers who, during the next fifty years, explored every nook and corner of the southern seas in search of prey. Scores of voyages are simply credited, in Mr. A. Howard Clarke's statistical history of fur sealing (already cited), however, simply to the "Southern Seas." M. Charles Vélain, who visited these islands in 1874, with the French Transit of Venus Expedition, reports that they were at that date still visited by considerable herds of fur-seals. (Cf. J. W. Clark, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1875, p. 653.)

WEST COAST OF SOUTH AFRICA AND ADJACENT ISLANDS.

South Africa.

Ichaboe Island.

Having taken

Mercury Island.

Bird Island.

As early as the year 1790, sealing voyages were made to the west coast of South Africa, and a greater or less number of fur-seals appear to have been taken here at intervals from that time till the present. In October and November, 1828, Capt. Benjamin Morrell cruised along the west coast from the Cape of Good Hope to Walwich Bay, in about 23° S., searching for seals. From his narrative it appears that he first met with them at a small island in latitude 31° 32′ S., about half a mile off the coast. (Morrell, Voyages.) At Ichaboe Island, 8 leagues north of Angra Pequena, he found great numbers of fur-seals, and "took about a thousand of their skins in a few days." He speaks of the island as the resort of "multitudes of fur-seals." (Ibid, p. 294.) "as many Fur-Seal skins here as was practicable," he passed on a few leagues farther to Mercury Island (lat. 25° 42′ S., long. 14° 58′ E.), where he took about a thousand Fur-Seal skins. At Bird Island, about 1 degree farther north, he obtained "the skins of 1,400 fur-seal at one time, although the landing was very bad." (Ibid., pp. 295, 296.) "As the season (November) was not sufficiently advanced for the seals to come up in their usual numbers on the islands and rocks" south of Walwich Bay, he made an excursion into the interior and again visited these islands about the end of December. He then took a few seals from Bird Island, and made an attack upon those on Mercury Island. "The rush of my little party," he says, "was simultaneous; every nerve and muscle was exerted, and we had reached the opposite side of the rookery, killing several seal on our way, when we found that the other party, under command of Mr. Burton, had been stopped in 'mid-course' about the center of the rookery by the immense number of seal that began to pour down the steep rocks and precipices like an irresistible torrent, bearing down their assailants, and taking several of the men nearly into the sea with them. Several hundred fur-seal were left lifeless on the shore and rocks." Owing to a fatal accident to one of his most valued men, due to a heavy breaker engulfing three of the party, the island, with its wealth of seals, was immediately abandoned and the vessel returned directly to the Cape of Good Hope, having taken, in all, about 4,000 seals. (Ibid., pp. 304-306.)

In 1830 Capt. Gurdon L. Allyn, with the sealing schooner Spark, of New London, Conn., visited Ichaboe Island, but arrived too late in the season (January 14) to secure many fur-seals. He found the carcasses of about a thousand from which the skins had been removed by sealers who had preceded him the same season. He says, speaking of the coast generally: "The coast was well sealed, and we could only glean a few from the roughest rocks. We found a few Seals at each landing, and by the 6th of September had taken

600 Seal skins." He secured small catches at intervals during the following months, and started for home on March 31, 1831, with a cargo of 3,700 skins. In 1834 he made another voyage with two vessels to the same coast, visiting Ichaboe, Mercury, and Bird Islands. The first season's work amounted to only about 800 skins, the seals being scarce and shy. Respecting the next season (1835) he says: "The Seals having been harassed so much, the prospect was slim for the next season, but by putting men on the small rocks to shoot them, and by great diligence, we managed to secure about 1,000 skins to both vessels, which was a slim season's work." (Capt. G. L. Allyn. The Old Sailor's Story, as quoted by Mr. C. Howard Clark.)

Cape of Good Hope.

Sealing appears to have been abandoned for some years following on the African coast, owing to the low price of seal-furs and the scarcity of the seals. It has, however, since been resumed, and placed under restrictions by the Government of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, the seal islands being rented to a sealing company under certain stipulated conditions, and poaching rigorously prohibited. The yield is small but steady, averaging about 5,000 skins per annum. (Affidavit of Emil Teichmann, of the London firm of furriers, C. M. Lampson & Co.)

Government regu

lations.

THE ALASKAN FUR-SEAL AND PELAGIC SEALING.

By J. A. ALLEN.

By request of the Secretary of State of the United States I have examined the report of the Commissioners appointed by the President in 1891 to investigate the subject of the fur-seal industry as conducted at the Pribilof Islands, and the influence of pelagic seal hunting in its relation thereto; also the numerous affidavits relating to the same subjects obtained by the Department of State from former United States Treasury agents in charge of the sealing industry at the said islands; from agents of the Alaskan Commercial, the North American Commercial, and the Russian Sealskin Companies; from officers of the United States Revenue Marine; from masters of sealing schooners and seal hunters engaged in pelagic sealing, and from the leading dealers and experts in the fur-seal trade, as well as the history of many now extinct fur-seal fisheries. I have also examined the reports, statistics, affidavits, and arguments contained in the Blue Books published by command of Her Britannic Majesty numbered C.-6131 (1890), C.-6368 (1891), C.-6633 (1892), C.-6634 (1892), and C.-6635 (1892), and the An- . nual Reports of the Department of Fisheries of the Dominion of Canada for the years 1885 to 1891, inclusive; in view of all which evidence and testimonies I submit the following statement in relation to the principal points of the subject:

Pribilof Islands.

Migration of seals.

1. The true home of the fur-seals of the eastern waters of the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea is the Pribilof group of islands in Bering Sea. It is to these islands that the Seals repair annually to breed, and there is no evidence that they breed elsewhere than on these islands. It is evident, from what we know of seal life elsewhere, that were the climate sufficiently mild in winter they would undoubtedly pass the whole year at these islands. Owing, however, to the inclemency of the winter months the fur-seals are forced to migrate southward in search of food and a milder climate. Some of the males, however, especially the bachelors, are known to remain about the islands, particularly in mild winters, nearly the whole year. Generally the greater part move southward and eastward to some point south of the Aleutian chain. They leave the Pribilof Islands much later in autumn than the females and young seals, and return thither much earlier in spring. The males in returning northward in spring evidently pass, in the main, much further from the coast than the females, and their northward migration is more rapid and direct.

The females on leaving the islands in the autumn move gradually southward as far at least as the coast of California, where they were formerly often seen in large numbers in January and February. Later in the season they proceed gradually northward, passing generally quite