440 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



To quote from the report: "If further evidence he 

 required, it is furnished by the facts relating to the fur-seal 

 of the Southern Hemisphere, where all the notable breeding- 

 places or rookeries were discovered on insular lands to which 

 man had never come, and on which, during this critical period 

 of the annual cycle of its life, the fur-seal was also exempt from 

 the attacks of other terrestrial animals to which it would have 

 been an easy prey. . . . This being granted, it is, per- 

 haps, a legitimate subject for speculation what the conditions 

 . of all the islands in the world were before their 

 occupation by men." 



Seals may have inhabited the world for ages before man, 

 and have had a hereditary knowledge of all the islands in the 

 sea. They may have been as numerous as man is now, for 

 they would not care for land-animals so long as they had sacred 

 breeding-places on islands off the coasts ; and we may have 

 no idea of the number of seals that existed before men started 

 to butcher them. 



The report from Cape Colony says, " Upon several islands, 

 especially in the Ichaboe group, are to be found the remains 

 of vast numbers of seal, probably the effect of an epidemic 

 disease at some distant period. In many places the hair, 

 which is practically indestructible, has been found mixed with 

 earth to the depth of several feet, and this, when sifted, gives 

 a fair percentage of ammonia and phosphates, probably the 

 residue of the bones and bodies of dead animals." Those 

 islands are on the coast just below the Tropic of Capricorn, so 

 that the natives would hardly need the skins for clothes; and 

 the "epidemic" was probably the clubs of the northern fur- 

 hunters. 



Norfolk Island is a mere dot in the great ocean, and about 

 five hundred miles away from anywhere; and, to show how 

 hard a thing it is to find a small island like that, we may cite 

 the hunt our swift steamers had for the " Perthshire," and 

 they might be as long finding Norfolk Island if they did not 

 know where it was located ; yet the old canoe-men found it, 

 and lived there for a while, although they had all left it before 

 Captain Cook found it in 1774. Perhaps Norfolk Island is 

 Hawaiki (the traditional starting-pomt of the Maori), but 

 we cannot tell, as there was no one there to tell us the 

 name of it. From its lonely position I have no doubt it was 

 once a great seal-rookery, and that the natives found it by 

 following the seals when they were going home to breed, and 

 lived there until they were all eaten or driven away. After 

 the seals had gone, the natives, who were accustomed to the 

 fleshpots, would say, " Our soul abhorreth bananas and fish ; 

 there are plenty of splendid trees; let us make a lot of big 

 canoes and follow the seals to the south-east at their next 



