402 ARTICLE BY DK. J. A. ALLEN. 



liis height from 1810 to 1820; the first sy«teiuatic i)roinotc'r.s of which 

 were the Sydney firms of Cable, Lord, & Underwood, liiley & Jones, 

 Birnie, and Hoak & Campbell. . . To so great an extent was 

 this indiscriminate killing carried that in two years (1814-1815) no less 

 than 400,000 skins were obtained from Penantepod, or Antii)odes Island 

 alone, and necessarily collected in so hasty a manner that very many of 

 them were imperfectly cnred. The ship PcgaHsus took home 100,000 of 

 these in bulk, and on her arrival in London the skins, having heated 

 during the voyage, had to be dug out of tlie hold, and were sold as 

 manure, a sad and reckless waste of life." (Scott, IMammalia, Eecent 

 and Extinct, Pinnata, pp. 18, 19.) According to other authorities, the 

 New Zealand sealing industry ceased to be a paying investment iirior 

 to 1863. 



Respecting the Auckland Islands, Morrell says: ''In the year 1823, 

 A '^-1 d II d.' ^^V^- Pobert Johnson, in the schooner Henry, of New 

 York, took from this island and the surrounding islets 

 about 13,000 of as good fur-seal skins as ever were brought to the 

 New York market. . . . Although the Auckland Isles once 

 abounded with numerous herds of fur and hair- seals, the American 

 and English seamen engaged in this business have made such clean 

 Avork of it as scarcely to leave a breed ; at all events, there was not 

 one fur-seal to be found on the 4th of January, 1830." (Morrell, Voy- 

 ages, p. 303 ) 



Early m the present century many fur and hair-seals were taken 

 from the Bounty Isles, near the southern end of New 



oun y ses. Zealand; from the Snares and the Traps, from Stew- 



arts, Chatham, and Campbell's Islands, and also from other islands to 

 the Southward of New Zealand; but at most of tliese points they ap- 

 pear to have become very soon practically exterminated. A few sur- 

 A'ived the general slaughter, and in recent years, under the protection 

 of the Government of the Colony of New Zealand, have so far in- 

 creased that there have been of late years a snnvll annual catch of fur- 

 seals in the New Zealand waters, amounting to from 1,000 to 2,000 x>er 

 year. (Afhdavit of Emil Teichmanu.) 



ST. PAUL AND AMSTERDAM ISLANDS. 



These islands, situated in the southern Indian Ocean (about lat. 38° 

 S., long. 77° 35' E.), midway between the Cape of Good Hope and Aus- 

 tralia, were first visited by Capt. Henry Cox in May, 1780. He says: 

 *'On first landing, we found the shore covered with such multitude of 

 seals that Ave were obliged to disperse them before we got out of the 

 boat. . . . We procured here a thousand seal skins of a very su- 

 perior quality, while Ave remained at the island of Amsterdam, besides 

 scA^eral casks of good oil for our binnacles and other purposes." (Cox 

 Voy. to Tenerifle, Amsterdam, etc., ]). 10.) 



Lend Macartney, who touched at Amsterdam in 1773, found five men 

 here collecting seal skins for the Canton market. He says of the seals: 

 "In the summer months they come ashore, sometimes in droACS of 800 

 or 1,000 at a time, out of which 100 aie destoyed, that number being as 

 many as 5 men can skin and peg doAvn to dry in the course of a day. 

 . . . Most of those Avhich come ashore are females, in the propor- 

 tion of more than thirty to one male." (Sir G. Staunton, xVcc. of an 

 Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, I, 

 p. 210.) 



I find no definite references to sealing at these islands in later years, 



