58 REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 



correctly explained as above. It may be supposed, that to tlie winds 

 and currents chiefly is attributable the conceutratiou of the far-seals iu 

 the vicinity of the coast preparatory to the iuceiition of the spoutaueous 

 northward movemeut early in the spring. 



(ii.) — Western Side of the North Pacific. 



197. Respecting the migratiou-rauge of the fur-seals which resort to 

 the Conunander Islands, to Robbeu Island, and in smaller numbers to 

 several places in the Kurile Islands, as more fully noted iu subsequent 

 Images, comparatively little has been recorded; but the result of inquir- 

 ies made iu various directions, when brought together, are sufiQcient to 

 enable its general character and the area which it covers to be outlined. 

 The deficiency in information for the Asiatic coast depends on the fact 

 that pelagic sealing, as uiulerstood on the coast of America, is there 

 liractically unknown, while the people inhabiting the coast and its 

 adjacent islands do not, like the Indians and Aleuts of the opposite 

 side of the North Pacific, naturally venture far to sea for hunting 

 liurposes. 



1*J8. The facts already cited in connection with the migration of the 

 seals on the east side of the Pacific, show that these animals enter and 

 leave Behring Sea almost entirely by the eastern passes through the 

 Aleutian chain, and that only under exce])tional circumstarices, and 

 under stress of weather, are some young seals, while on their way south, 

 driven as far to the west as Atka Island. No large bodies of migrating 

 seals are known to pass near Attn Island, the westernmost of the Aleu- 

 tians, and no young seals have ever within memory been seen there. 

 These circumstances, with others which it is not necessary to detail 

 here, are sufficient to demonstrate that the main migration-routes of 

 the seals frequenting the Commander Islands do not touch the Aleu- 

 tian chain, and there is every reason to believe that although the seals 

 become more or less commingled in Behring Sea during the summer, 

 the migration-routes of the two sides of the North Pacific are essentially 

 distinct, 



199. During the late autumn, the winter, and in early spring, the 

 fur-seals of the western side of the North Pacific are in fact known to 

 frequent that part of the ocean to the eastward of the Island of Yezo, 

 the northernmost of the Japanese group, and are seen about that coast 

 chiefly between Inobasaki and the east iiart of Yezo. As the prevailing 

 winds are at these seasons off-shore, and as neither these nor any 

 oceanic current tend to establish a drift toward the land, the fur-seals 

 are probably much more widely scattered in i)roportion to their numbers, 

 and are spread out to a greater distance from tlie land here, than those 

 of the other side of the ocean are found to be during the corresponding- 

 period of stay in their winter habitat. This belief corres])onds with 

 such information as we have been able to obtain on the subject, and 

 probably in part at least explains the fact that it has not yet been found 

 to be a profitable enterprise to engage in pelagic sealing iu this portion 

 of the Pacific. It must further, however, be mentioned here, that no 

 definite information has been obtained as to the northern limit of the 

 tract which may be described as the winter habitat of the fur-seal on the 

 western side of the North Pacific. It may therefore possibly include 

 some portion of the waters adjacent to the Kurile Islands. 



200. According to information contained in a Memorandum supplied 

 by your Majesty's Minister at Tokid (Appendix B), the seals are first 

 Been off the coast of Yezo early in November, while from other sources 



