Henry. — On Seals as Navigators. 441 



breeding-season." This might account for the Maori migra- 

 tion to New Zealand, because, with the prevailing winds, they 

 could hardly miss it from Norfolk Island. 



Before the advent of man, New Zealand, being without 

 any offensive land-animals and having abundance of fish, was 

 probably the greatest old seal-rookery in the world, and would 

 have been quite easy to find by those who could keep afloat 

 in canoes ; but such people would never have been able to go 

 back to Hawaiki if there were no seals going to point them 

 out the way ; and for the same reason they would not go 

 willingly to Australia. The "darkies" were too handy with 

 their spears to suit the seals. 



The Sandwich Islands were still more lonely, for they 

 were about a thousand miles away from anywhere ; yet the 

 old natives found them, and, I think, brought pigs there. 

 They must have known where they were going, or, at least, 

 were confident of finding land somewhere. Those islands 

 were almost sure to have been seal-rookeries, and the seals 

 may have been so tame and got so used to the canoes that they 

 would come alongside within reach of the clubs and spears. 



If this theory be correct, it would put the whole mystery of 

 navigation in a nutshell, because it would supply chart, com- 

 pass, and provisions. 



Even now some Indians and Esquimaux catch the timid 

 seals with harpoons, so that in the early days it would have 

 been only child's play. 



In this way all the lonely islands may have been discovered 

 and populated. In the case of Easter Island, where we find 

 the old temples and ruins, the people may have wisely farmed 

 the seals, and have thereby flourished for centuries, until some 

 civil war allowed the seals to be murdered as they were else- 

 where, and then the people would dwindle away. 



Easter Island is only about fifteen hundred miles from 

 Mas-a-fura and Juan Fernandez, which was a little too far for 

 them to follow the seals. 



The Pribyloffs were only three hundred miles away from a 

 thickly populated chain of islands, and yet the Indians never 

 found them. Probably they had plenty of travelling seals 

 around their own shores. The Russians only found them ten 

 years after the American war of independence and Captain 

 Cook's time. So that the seals had hidden themselves well. 



The seals were, one after the other, hunted away from 

 their old homes, first by natives in canoes, and then by 

 modern navigators in ships. And it is w T onderful how they 

 tried to avoid man by seeking out the most distant and lonely 

 islands in the ocean. It seems as if they had a hereditary 

 knowledge — like the young cuckoos — of where the islands 

 were and where they had to go to find a temporary home ; 



