46 THE ANIMALS OF NEW ZEALAND 



sealing began to decline, some of the boats determined to try 

 further fields, and Messrs. Kable and Underwood, of Sydney, 

 commenced the trade between Sydney and New Zealand with a 

 schooner of 31 tons, called the Endeavour. She visited Dusky 

 and Breaksea Sounds and the Solander Island, and received a 

 cargo of 2000 skins, which realised 4s. 6d. each. From that time 

 onward the trade flourished. Sir Joseph Banks, writing in 1806 

 about seals in the southern parts of New Zealand, says : ' ' Their 

 stations on the rocks or in the bays have remained unmolested 

 since the Creation. The beach is encumbered with their quan- 

 tities, and those who visit their haunts have less trouble in killing 

 them than the servants of the victualling office have, who kill 

 hogs in a pen with a mallet." In July of the same year, Sir 

 Joseph stated that on one vessel expected from Sydney there 

 were 30,000 sealskins from the Antipodes Islands. 



Mr. McNab adds that as early as 1810 the effect of the reckless 

 slaughter began to be felt, and it was the discovery of the 

 Campbell Islands and the Macquarie Islands, in that year, which 

 gave fresh life to this trade. The number of seals taken from the 

 southern islands was enormous. After 1810, however, only those 

 captains who were well acquainted with the seals' haunts were 

 able to obtain large (juantities of skins. 



It has been calculated that, in 1824, ten vessels touched on the 

 New Zealand coast and at the islands, and took away 70,000 

 or 80,000 skins, mostly from the southern islands, 40,000 or 

 50,000 going to Sydney, and the remainder to England. In those 

 days, a sealskin in Sydney was worth about 15s. It is recorded 

 that the industry was carried on so assiduously, and the south- 

 west portions of the coast were hunted so industriously by sealers, 

 who killed the females and the young for food, that there was fear 

 of the seal, in those parts, becoming extinct. Two years later, 

 a vessel spent six months in a cruise searching for new sealing 

 grounds, and took back only 449 skins. Stewart Island was a 

 specially favoured spot for sealers, and many of them also 

 established stations in Dusky Sound and in the bays and inlets 

 on the coast. The fur seal is still found at the Snares, the Bounty 

 Islands, the West Coast Sounds, and the seal rocks off Westport. 



