REPORT OF J5R1TISH COMMISSIONERS. 253 



80 characteristic of the jieuiis Otaria iu the seuse (U'fined on p. 20, were procured from 

 the Kcrgueleii j;roui) of ishiiuls, in the Messier Chiinnel on the west coast of South 

 America, aud from Juan leruaudez. They consisted of the following specimens 

 lioni Kerguclen: two carcases of .voung fur-seals without the skin, procured from 

 the ' Kmma Jane ' at Fuller's Harhour, January 1874 ; two skeletons of fur-seals, also 

 at Fullers llaihour, wliich were distinguished from each oilier as No. 1 and No. 2 

 (No. 2 having hcen kille<l on Swaine Island). From tbe Messier Channel were 

 obtained the skin aud skeleton of a male and the skin and skeleton of a female; also 

 tvfo skeletons of males shot on rocks in January 1876. The si)ecimen fnmi Juan 

 Furuandez was a skin containing the skeleton of a very young animal." (Zoology, 

 vol. xxvi, part Ixvii, p. 37.) 



182 7. — Seals and Sealiiif/ in New Zealand. 



Through the kindness of Professor T. J. Parker, F. R. S., of the University of Otago, 

 Dunedin, New Zealand, the subjoined interesting account of the seal lishery in New 

 Zealand, written at his reciutst, has been furnished by Mr. Fiedeiick Chapman. 

 The communication is in the form of a letter addressed to Professor Parker, and is 

 dated from Dunedin, 24th September, 1891: 



"I have endeavoured to get some delinite infonnation aud original opinions to 

 enable you to answer Mr. G. Dawson's letter of the 23rd June, with reference to tlie 

 extirpation of our seals, but the only person I could think of as *dd enough to give 

 me first-hand iniormation, yet not too old, has not yet answered my letter. I think,- 

 however, that from a general knowledge of the traditions and literature of old New 

 Zealand, and from books at my command, I can give you something to begin with, 

 and I will try and obtain more. 



"Doubtless Mr. Dawson has access to a pajier on the fur-seal of New Zealand, by 

 J. \V. Clarke, in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1875 (p. 650), which 

 is in your Museum library. This paper gives some interesting facts, the verification 

 of which I had previously sought for years. As I know nothing of the seals in Aus- 

 tralian Avaters beyond the fact that they were once numerous in the islands of Bass 

 Strait, I will come to New Zealand. Seals were formerly numerous on our mainland. 

 To get at the numbers taken here early iu the century, one w(»uld have to make 

 inquiries of old mercantile houses in Sydney, London, and America— the Campliells, 

 Euderbys, &c., if any of them exist. The old Maori traditions constantly refer to 

 seals, which were very numerous iu th(i neighbourhood of this port two centuries 

 ago, and may have been ideiitiful when the century began. The rocky west coast i>t' 

 this island was, however, the home of numerous seals, and a few are still killed 

 there in quiet places. There was a beautiful colony at the Steeples, close to the 

 Westport lighthouse, but when the Government Ojieued a season for sealing, a few 

 months since, a jiarty went out in a boat from Westport and butchered them. That 

 was already regarded as a past place for sealing when Briinuer explored that coast 

 by land in 1846, though Brunner saw a few seals there. It had evidently revived in 

 our time. The coasts of Foveaiix Strait and the west coast swarmed witli sealers 

 early in this century, and there were some on the west coast about Dusky Sound 

 even earlier. They were shore parties, who bagged the seals in great numbers. Dr. 

 Shortland, who \ isited Mr. Jones' whaling station at Waikonarti, lO miles from here, 

 in 1842, frequently i efers to the sealing, but rather as a past matter. Our whales were 

 pretty well exterminated by 1850, and had even then long been scarce, and a writer 

 ten years before that re])eats the protests of the French whalers, who were numer- 

 ous here, against the disastrous practice of the Sydney peo]de, who maintained shore 

 stations, and so utterly destroyed the whales. It is difticnlt to realize that in 1813 

 there were, fourteen whale ships lying in this port, with all their boats out daily, 

 and four shore stations iu active operaticm, in face of the fact that during the nine- 

 teen years I have lived here only one whale has been killed. I have digressed from 

 the seals, but the fact of the whale explains, and more than explains, that of the 



"Captain Turnball, whose book I have never seen, writes in 1810 of 46,000 seals 

 taken at the Fiji Islands. We don't hear of seals there now. It is quite possible, 

 tiiat that locality was mentioned to lead others off the scent. At Macquarie Island 

 the discoverers killed in one season 80,000 fur-seals! Our friend Professor Scott 

 visited it ten years ago. and was told the fur seal never came there. Ever since then 

 it has been occupied by sea-eleidiant hunters, but no fur-seal ever visits them. Tliis 

 suggests that tlie fur-seals do not come ii]) ficm the, Antarctic ice, as tlic; sea elei)hant 

 do? Campbell Island was repeatedly occniiied by sealing parties, some of whose 

 graves are seen there Antijiodes Island was occupied in 1824. and I do not know 

 how much earlier or later. Ca])tain Fairi liild, of the New Zealand Govcinment 

 steamer, in four or live visits has never seen a seal there. The Auckland Islaiuls, the 



