518 FAMILY PHOCID.E. 



so indiscriminately and injudiciously were they slaughtered, 

 that in comparatively a few years it became practically exter- 

 minated along all those coasts and islands that afforded safe 

 harbors for the vessels engaged in this exceedingly profitable 

 enterprise. At one time abounding on many of the islands off 

 the southern portion of the South American continent, on both 

 the Atlantic and Pacific sides, along favorable stretches of the 

 Patagonian coast, in Terra del Fuego, the Falkland, South Shet- 

 land, South Georgian, and other neighboring islands, as well as 

 at the Crozet's, Kerguelen, and Heard's Islands, they are said 

 to be now found in numbers only on the more inaccessible 

 portion of the last-named group of islands. It is difficult, in- 

 deed impossible, to give even approximate statistics respecting 

 the numbers of the animals killed, or the amount of Elephant 

 Seal oil obtained. For many years several ships annually ob- 

 tained partial or complete cargoes from the various localities 

 already mentioned, new stations being sought when the old 

 ones had become exhausted, but the vessels engaged in Sea- 

 Elephant hunting were mostly also engaged in Fur Seal hunting 

 and in whaling, and generally no separate reports of the pro- 

 ducts of each being given, the statistics of the business are 

 consequently not easily obtainable. 



Eespecting the history and the present status of Elephant 

 Seal hunting at Kergueleu Land and Heard's Island I quote 

 the following from Dr. J. H. Kidder's recent report on the nat- 

 ural history of Kergueleu Island: "In former years the Ker- 

 guelen group of islands was noted as a favorite breeding-place 

 for the sea-elephant (Macrorhinus leoninus L.). On this ac- 

 count it has been much frequented by sealers for the last forty 

 years, and resorted to also by whalers as a wintering-place, on 

 account of the great security of Three Island Harbor. The sea- 

 elephants have been so recklessly killed off year after year, no 

 precautions having been taken to secure the preservation of the 

 species, that now they have become very rare. Only a single 

 small schooner, the Eoswell King, was working the island dur- 

 ing our visit, two others and a bark working Heard's Island, 

 some three hundred miles to the south, where the elephants are 

 still found in considerable numbers. Probably they would long- 

 since have abandoned the Kerguelen Islands altogether but 

 for a single inaccessible stretch of coast, Bonfire Beach; where 

 they still 'haul up' every spring (October and November ) and 

 breed in considerable numbers. The beach is limited at each 



