424 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



be bad seen an old male take up a younger one in bis teetb and tbrow him over, lifting him in the 

 air. The males show tight when whipped, and are with great difficulty driven into the sea. They 

 are sometimes treated with horrible brutality. Tbe females gave birth to their young soon after 

 our arrival. The new born young are almost black, unlike the adults, which are of a light slate 

 brown, and the young of the northern bladder-nose, which are white. They are suckled by the 

 female for some time, and then left to themselves lying on the beach, where they seem to grow fat 

 without further feeding. They are always allowed by the sealers thus to lie, in order to make 

 more oil. This account was corroborated by all the sealers I met with. I do not understand it ; 

 propably the cows visit their young from time to time unobserved. I believe similar stories are 

 told of the fattening on nothing of the young of northern seals. 



"Peron says that both parent elephant seals stay with the young without feeding at all, until 

 the young are six or seven weeks old, and that then the old ones conduct the young to the water 

 ami keep them carefully in their company. The rapid increase in weight is in accordance with 

 Peron's account. 



"Charles Goodrich gives a somewhat different account, namely, that after the females leave 

 their young the old males and young proceed inland, as far as two miles sometimes, and stop 

 without food for more than a month, and during this time lose fat. The male elephants come on 

 shore on the Crozets for the breeding season about the middle of August, the females a little later. 



"There are said to be forty men in all upon Heard's Island. Men occasionally get lost upon the 

 glaciers. Sometimes a man gets desperate from being in so miserable a place, and one of the crew 

 of a whaler that we met at Kerguelen Land said, after he had had some rum, that occasionally 

 men had to be shot; a statement which may be true or false, but which expresses at all events the 

 feeling of the men on the matter. 



" The men that we saw seemed contented with their lot. The ' boss' said, in answer to our 

 inquiries, that he had only one fur-seal skin, which he would sell if he was paid for it, but he guessed 

 he'd sell it anyhow when he got back to the States. He had been engaged in sealing about the 

 island since 1854, having landed with the first sealing party which visited the island. For his 

 present engagement his time was up next year, but he guessed he'd stay two years more. He'd 

 make $500 or so before he went home, but would probably spend half of that when he touched at 

 Cape of Good Hope on the way. 



" The men had good clothing, and did not look particularly dirty. They lived in wooden huts, 

 or rather under roofs built over holes in the ground, thus reverting to the condition of the ancient 

 British. Around their huts were oil casks and tanks, and a hand-barrow for wheeling blubber 

 about. There were also casks marked molasses, flour, and coal. The men said they had as much 

 biscuit as they wanted, and also beans and pork, and a little molasses and flour. Their principal 

 food was penguins, and they used penguin skins with the fat for fuel. Capt. Sir G. S. Nares saw 

 five such skins piled on the fire one after the other in one of the huts."* 



THE AUCKLANDS, BOUNTY ISLES, ANTIPODES, AND STEWART'S ISLAND. 



About the year 1800 Vancouver reported that fur-seals could be found in abundance on the 

 southwest coast of Australia. It was not long before vessels started in search of them. The brig 

 Union, of New York, Captain Pendleton, went there in 1802, but being unsuccesful in finding seals 



* Notes by a naturalist on the Challenger, being an account of various observations made during the voyage of H. M. 

 S. Challenger around the world, the years 1872-1876, under the command of Capt. Sir G. S. Nares, R. N., K. C. B., 

 F. R. S., and Capt. F. T. Thompson, R. N., by H. N. Moseley, M. A., F. R. S., Fellow of Exeter College, &c., with a 

 map, two colored plates, and numerous wood-cuts. London : MacMillan & Co., 1879. 8 vo., pp. i-xvi, 1-620. 



