372 FRANCIS TPEVELYA'tf AUCKLAND. 



year, the fleet set to work to kill the seals on March 

 26, 1874, and in forty-eight hours the fishing was 

 completely over, the old seals being shot, wounded, 

 or scared away, while thousands upon thousands of 

 young ones were left crying piteously for their 

 mothers. These mostly perished of famine in the 

 snow, as they were not old enough to make worth 

 while the trouble of killing them. 



" ( If you could imagine yourself surrounded by 

 four or five hundred thousand babies, all crying at 

 the pitch of their voices, you would have some 

 idea of the piteous noise they make. Their cry is 

 very like that of a human infant. These motherless 

 seals collect into lots of five or six, and crawl about 

 the ice, their heads fast becoming the biggest part 

 of their bodies, searching, no doubt, to find the 

 nourishment they stand so much in need of.' " 



In 1876, an international close time was estab- 

 lished, prohibiting the killing of seals until after 

 April 3. 



Mr. Buckland's reports on crab, lobster, herring, 

 and other fisheries were most full and interesting. 

 " Before the young crabs are born," he said, " the 

 mother crab tucks up under her tail her numerous 

 family of from one to two million coral-like eggs, 

 and she sidles on tiptoe many a mile from her 

 rocky home to some sandy flat in the deep sea, 

 where her young family may flourish best. There, 

 or perhaps on returning home, in early spring, the 

 time for all young things to come forth, the tiny 

 crabs burst the egg; yet so unlike their parent, 



