REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 137 



One of tlie difficulties found in guarding this island is due to itssnnill 

 size, in consequence of which the luere presence of guardians on shore 

 tends continually to disturb the seals. 



518. Passing to the coast of Kamschatka, from various good author- 

 ities on the Commander Islands and at Petropaulovski, it was learnt 

 that there is some reason to believe that a new breeding place of the 

 fur-seal has been established near Cape Stolboi or Ca])e Kamschatka. 

 Females with young imps have been seen otf this part of the coast, and 

 an attempt was made in 1890 to examine it in boats, but was frustrated 

 by stormy weather. 



519. At Cape Tshipunski, also on the Kamschatka coast, M. Greb- 

 nitsky, the Superintendent of the Commander Islands, stated that he 

 saw breeding fur-seals in 1879 or 1880, though it had been ascertained 

 in 1877 that there were no seals there. Subsequent to the time of M. 

 Grebuitsky's visit, the incipient rookery was destroyed by hunters or by 

 raiding schooners. 



520. From the vicinity of Cape Kamschatka north-eastward to Bar- 

 oness Korf Gulf, a stretch of coast exists which has been entirely unin- 

 habited for many years, and about which very little is known. The 

 former inhabitants were killed off by small-pox, according to informa- 

 tion received in 1780.* 



Karaginski Island lies off this part of the coast, and here it is rejiorted 

 that numbers of seals were seen in former years. 



521. It seems certain that the killing and harassing of the seals which 

 has been so actively carried on for the past ten years or more from the 

 Japanese coast, along the Kurile Islands, has had the effect of causing 

 these animals to wander further afield than before, and more or less 

 instinctively to seek for new and secluded breeding i)laces. 



522. Thus, the Lieutenant Governor of Petropaulovski, who is well 

 acquainted with the northern coasts of the Okotsk Sea, informed us 

 that up in the north, off the Ola Eiver and in Tausk Bay, the natives 

 have noticed the fur-seal since 1880, though not before, and that fishing- 

 vessels in these waters occasionally secure one or two. It is also known 

 that fur-seal occasionally haul out at various points, although at none 

 are they known to breed. Captain Brandt, of the Pussian gun-boat 

 "Aleut," again has himself recorded as a new feature seeing several 

 fur-seals off Point Povorotuy, near Vladivostock, and states that seals 

 are sometimes seen at Cape Seritoko. 



523. The facts relating to the Asiatic coast of the ISTorth Pacific, out- 

 lined above, showing as they do that several outlying rocks and islands 

 in various latitudes, and affected by somewhat diverse climatic condi- 

 tions, have been or are resorted to by the fur-seal as breeding places, and 

 that new places of resort maybe chosen by that animal, go far to prove 

 that it is to the continuously inhabited character of the Aleutian Islands, 

 and other islands along the American coast, that the absence of such 

 breeding places there at the present day must be generally attributed. 

 This is fully borne out by the notes already given with respect to 

 former breeding places on the Californian and British Columbian and 

 Alaskan coasts, and may be adduced in favour of a belief that Avith 

 proper protection new rookeries might not imi)robably be established 

 in suitable places, jirovided there be no disturbance or slaughter by 

 man. 



524. This is particularly worthy of consideration in the case of the 

 Aleutian Islands, where, in consequence of the now very small and 



* Baucroft, however, gives this year aa 1768, " History," vol. xxxiii, p. 161. 



