SEAL -HUNTING NORTH PACIFIC AND SOUTHERN SEAS. 517 



against the barrier of nets, and are caught in the meshes, so 

 that they can be killed without difficulty. This way of hunt- 

 ing is prohibited in those parts of the sea where it injures the 

 fishing or obstructs the first manner of hunting. The chase on 

 the ice is fraught with many dangers, and is, therefore, at pres- 

 ent prohibited. The hunters, sitting on little sledges drawn by 

 strong and hardy horses, and provided with food, continue on 

 for several weeks to shoot old seals, and kill young ones while 

 they still have their white and silk-like fur. These hunters 

 brave all dangers ; and it has sometimes happened that the 

 south or southwest wind, having detached large masses of ice 

 from the shore, has driven them out into the open sea, where 

 they have floated in all directions, with the adventurous hunts- 

 men on them. These unfortunate hunters usually perish from 

 cold and hunger on these masses of ice, or find their death in 

 the waves."* 



7. JSforth Pacific. In the North Pacific the capture of seals 

 for commercial purposes is mainly restricted to the pursuit of 

 the Sea-Elephant {2IacrorMnus angustirostris), on the coasts of 

 Western Mexico and Lower California. This, although at one 

 time a business of no small importance, was nearly abandoned 

 many years since, and for the best of reasons, namely, the well- 

 nigh complete extinction of the species in consequence of indis- 

 criminate and reckless slaughter. As the history of the subject 

 falls more naturally into the account of that species (to be given 

 later), little further need be said respecting it in the present 

 connection. Many Seals are, of course, annually killed by the 

 natives of the Alaskan, Kamtschatkan, and other coasts of the 

 Korth Pacific, but I am not aware that sealing is there carried 

 on anywhere, either by the natives or foreign sealing- vessels, to 

 any noteworthy extent. 



8. Antarctic Seas. In the southern hemisphere no Seals occur 

 that are the strict representatives of the Greenland and other 

 Seals which, in the northern hemisijhere, aflbrd the seal-hunter 

 so lucrative a booty. In the colder south temperate and Ant- 

 arctic seas is found their commercial representative in that mam- 

 moth of the Seal tribe, the Sea-Elephant, or so-caUed Elephant 

 Seal {Macrorliinus leoninus). Here Elephant Seal hunting was 

 for a time prosecuted with great vigor, esi)ecially during the 

 early part of the present century. The species was hunted almost 

 exclusively for its oil, and so easily were the animals taken, and 



* Rep. U. S. Com. Fish and Fisheries, part iii, 1873-74 aud 1874-75, pp. 93, 95. 



