REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 133 



shooting' tlieiii with barbed arrows, and in nets. In some phices, a fur 

 covering for the head and neck enabled tlie hunters to approach ch)se 

 to the seals. The annual (;atch of from li,000 to 3,000 skins is disposed 

 of to Chinese buyers in Hakodate. In the autumn, tliey sometimes 

 take 2,000 to 2,500 grey pups in nets. But it has always been custom- 

 ary, whenever a rookery was discovered, especially along the Kurile 

 Islands, for larger vessels to proceed thither and take all seals that 

 could be killed on shore by clubbing. 



490. The Japanese Agricultural Department states that the fur-seal 

 appears to be reared on the rocky coasts, and caught at a distance of 

 not more than one nautical mile from the shore, but that they are gen- 

 erally found on the beaches and clubbed there. 



497. In recent years good records have been kept, especially of ves- 

 sels nnder foreign flags engaged in sealing from Japan, but it is not 

 so certain that all Japanese vessels so employed are always registered 



498. The following are the figures, about one-half of the total being- 

 under the British flag: 



499. Tlie rapid increase in numbers of vessels employed from 18S0 

 u]) to 1884 was due to the discovery of the rookeries on the Kurile 

 Islands. But these were speedily exhausted by indiscriminate slaugh- 

 ter, and these sealing- vessels almost confined their operations to raids 

 in and around Robben Ivsland and the Commander Islands, especially 

 during the temi)orary absence of the guard-ships. Several schooners 

 came from America every autumn for sealing purposes, but not one of 

 these vessels was ever employed in " pelagic" sealing. 



500. It is certain that these schooners could not have been worked at 

 a profit unless they had taken ten times as many skins as are reported 

 to have been landed at Hakodate and Yokohama. But it is almost 

 impossible to form a correct estimate of the total catch, because the 

 vessels sometimes bring to Japanese ports skins of seals raided from 

 the Russian shores, and sometimes shifj seal-skins thus obtained to 

 Europe or China without bringing them into a Japanese port, even if 

 only for transhipment. 



501. Of the extensive and wasteful slaughter on the breeding places 

 included in the territorial jurisdiction of Japan, many interesting 

 though incomplete records were obtained. Captain Miner, of Seattle, 

 a jjarticularly well-informed sealer, had frequently been to these rook- 

 eries. The Alaska Commercial Company, he stated, liad obtained seals 

 from Ushishir and Srednoi in 1882-83. In 1884, he heard from the 

 natives of a rookery at Kikaka, a small island near Mattoo. There he 

 secured 4,500 skins, but news of this having become public there were 

 next year six schooners at work there, and the few seals left were 

 killed oft" by the Japanese IMarine Products Company which now leases 

 the island. 



