60 REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 



coast (read Commander Islands); but the most are catched about tbe 

 Cape of Kronitzkoy, as between this and tbe Cape Sbupinskoy (both 

 on the east coast of Kamtschatka) ; the sea is generally calm, and 

 aftbrds them proper places to retire to. Almost all the females that 

 are caught in the spring are pregnant; and such as are near their time 

 of bringing forth their young are immediately opened, and the young 

 taken out and skinned. None of them are to be seen from the begin- 

 ning of June to the end of August, when they return from the south 

 {sic, read cast) with their young." 



206. The remarks on the same subject made by Fleurieu in March- 

 and's voyage are probably in the main also based on those of Steller. 

 He writes, referring to the last decade of the eighteenth century: 



Ces auimaux quitteut au mois de Juiu les c6tes tie la prcsqu'ile cle Kamtscbatka- 

 et y revienneut, comine il a <5tc dit, a la fiu d'Aoflt ou au conimeiicement de Septembro, 

 pour y passer rautomue et I'liiver. Daus les temps du ddjiart, les femelles sout 

 jjrctes a mettre bas, et il paroit que I'objet du voyage de ces anipliibies et de 

 s'^loigner le plus qu'ils peuvent de toute tcrre habitee, pour faire trauquillenient 

 leur petits sur des bords solitaires, et s'y livrer eusuite sans trouble aus plaisirs de 

 Famour; car c'est un mois apres qu'elles out mis bas que les femelles eutreut en 

 chaleur. Tous reviennent fort maigrcs a la fin d'Aoiit ; et il est a pr^sumer que, 

 pendant leur absence, ils ne mangent que peu ou point du tout.* 



207. The particular interest attaching to these quotations is, that 

 they appear to show that at the early dates to which they refer, the fur- 

 seal was much better known and more often seen by the natives of the 

 coast of Kamtschatka than it is at the present day, from which it is 

 reasonable to conclude that on the Asiatic coast as well as ou that of 

 North America the fur-seal has considerably changed its habits, as the 

 result of persistent hunting, and has become more pelagic than it 

 originally was. 



Particulars of the same kind referring to the North American coast 

 are elsewhere referred to in detail (§ 396 et seq.). 



208. The mode of origination of the regular migratory habit, which 

 has become hereditary and instinctive in the case at least of by far the 



largest number of the fur-seals of the North Pacific, is an inter- 

 34 esting question of a general kind. It is evident that the habit 



has grown up as a necessary result of resorting to far northern 

 breeding grounds, while at the same time it is not essentially a part of 

 the life liistory of the animal, as the breeding stations formerly occupied 

 on the Californian coast show. It is further instructive to mention, that 

 as the result of inquiries made on this point from those most familiar with 

 the subject in New Zealand, the Falkland Islands, and Cape Colony, it 

 is found that the closely related fur seal of the Southern Hemisphere 

 does not regularly migrate over great tracts of the ocean, but, when 

 occupying stations where the conditions are favourable for its existence 

 throughout the year, it merely approaches the shores and lands upon 

 them at the breeding season. The continued presence of fur-seals about 

 the Commander Islands in mild winters, likewise shows that even in 

 the case of the fur-seal of the North Pacific, it requires the prompting 

 afforded by decided changes in the seasons to keep up the regularity 

 of its migratory habits. It has indeed been suggested, and with some 

 probability, that the seasonal changes in the temiierature of the sea 

 itself may have much to do with impressing regularity on the annual 

 movement of migration, or, in other words, that when this temperature 

 falls below or rises above certain limits, the seals begin to move south- 

 ward or northward in search of less frigid or less heated waters. The 

 data at hand are, however, insufficient lor a detailed study of this point. 



* "Voyage autour du Monde, 1790-92," tome V, p. 65. 



