Henry. — On Seals as Navigators. 439 



Art. LV. — Seals as Navigators. 

 By E. Henry. 



[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 16th October, 1900.'] 



In olden times, no doubt, seals were very numerous, and 

 when all travelling towards their breeding-islands at one 

 season the old natives may have followed them, or steered the 

 course the various parties were going, and thus dispensed 

 with chart and compass and provisions, for even now some 

 natives can catch seals with a harpoon at sea. To show how 

 tame they used to be, one of the old voyagers wrote as fol- 

 lows of the seals on Mas-a-fura in 1767: "We went ashore, 

 but could hardly set a foot down, the seals lay so thick. 

 We had to kill a notable number of them, because 

 they were continually running agaiust us." And, again: 

 " The seals on the southern islands were so tame that they 

 played fearlessly about the men who were skinning those they 

 had just killed." That was only a hundred and fifty years 

 ago ; and, with millions of such seals as those, there is not 

 a shadow of a doubt but that five hundred or a thousand 

 years ago the natives could have followed them and caught 

 them in the ocean for food when on their voyages of dis- 

 covery. 



In the year 1798 a million sealskins were taken from the 

 neighbourhood of Mas-a-fura to Canton, and three millions 

 and a half were taken before they were exterminated on that 

 one island. No one will ever know how many millions were 

 taken from our southern islands, because, what with Americans 

 and others, whose interest it was to keep their successes secret, 

 one-tenth of the skins taken may not have been recorded. 



Most of the facts stated in the following are gathered from 

 the report of the Behring Sea Commission. 



The Commander and Pribyloff Islands, when first dis- 

 covered, in 1741 and 1786 respectively, were entirely unin- 

 habited by man ; nor has any evidence been found since on 

 either group that man had previously visited them. They 

 were the only islands in the North Pacific that were not 

 peopled or visited by man, and this was evidently the sole 

 reason why the seals had chosen them for breeding-places, 

 because the fur-seal when resorting to the land for breeding 

 is practically defenceless, and is incapable alike of resistance 

 or effective flight, while its flesh and fat are highly prized by 

 all native tribes as food. 



