ADDENDA. 85 



birth. They do not associate in rookeries. The female usually hauls up alone 

 on some low rock or rocky ledge or beach to give birth to her young, which very 

 soon takes to the water. This seal does not appear to be polygamous. During 

 fine weather it is not unusual to see a dozen or more of these seals lying basking on 

 rocks or ledges just awash or a little above the water. When approached, they 

 scramble into the water, and will then swim round and venture close to a boat 

 with little apparent fear, as if to gratify their curiosity. On making a movement, 

 they will disappear beneath the surface of the sea, to appear again in a few minutes 

 or seconds. These seals almost invariably sink beneath the surface hind parts 

 first, whereas the sea-lions, fur seals, and sea-otters almost as invariably turn over 

 and go down head first. 



The hair seal is usually silent, but it occasionally emits a sound — a single short 

 bark, not unlike that of a dog. 



The meat of the hair seal is very dark and coarse-grained, and the fat is very 

 strong. It contains an immense quantity of blood. 



Whilst the seal rookeries are deserted, the sea-otter has become so scarce 

 that not more than seventy or eighty are now taken in a year along the whole 

 chain of the Kurils. The sea-otter has been continuously hunted since 1873, 

 chiefly by foreign vessels, and by the Japanese (after they found out the value 

 of the animal, which they knew little or nothing about previous to 1874) from 

 stations on shore and latterly from schooners under the Japanese flag. 



Although sea-otter skins in the London market realize from £15 to £210 each, 

 according to quality, this animal has been so reduced in numbers, and is now so 

 difficult of approach, that hunting it from a vessel no longer pays. 



The state of affairs to which the Kuril Islands are now reduced in regard to 

 fur seals and sea-otters might have been very different, and the seal rookeries 

 preserved and made a lasting source of revenue, had the Japanese Government 

 taken proper means to exploit them. The Government have no one to blame but 

 themselves and their own officials. Time after time their attention was called to the 

 importance of the matter, but apparently, owing to their reluctance to employ any 

 foreigners to manage the business or give advice upon it, or to allow them to lease 

 the right of taking seals, etc., or to be interested in the business with Japanese, 

 the opportunity to secure the only benefit the Government were ever likely to 

 obtain from their unfortunate bargain with Russia has probably been lost for ever. 

 Without foreign assistance and advice the Japanese cannot manage this industry. 

 They have tried it over and over again, but their experiments have always ended 

 in disastrous failure and loss. 



The sea-otters of the Kuril Islands are particularly fine ; some of the hand- 

 somest skins which find their way into the London market are taken there. 



The favourite haunts of this animal are off the rocky points and reefs where 

 kelp is plentiful. The ends and the Pacific side of the islands are most frequented. 

 On the Okhotsk or north-west sides of the islands it is rarely that an otter is found. 

 The reasons for this are, probably, that the Pacific or south-east side is the lee 

 side during the severe winter and spring weather, and they are not so liable to be 

 hemmed in by ice-fields. In the summer, too, it is the foggy side, thus offering 

 them greater protection from their human enemies. 



The food of the sea-otter, which chiefly consists of sea-urchins, crabs, sea-apples, 

 etc., is everywhere abundant on the islands, particularly in the immense kelp-fields, 



G 3 



