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Depletion of the Fur-Seal in the Southern Seas. 447 
to think that it would support any conclusions differing 
from those toward which the evidence now collected tends, 
I think it as well to communicate what I have. 
All early writers on New Zealand, Tasmania (Van Die- 
men’s Land) and the southern part of Australia agree in 
describing the fur-seal as very plentiful in these regions. 
Captain Cook (1770), after circumnayigating the North 
Island of New Zealand, passed down the east coast of the 
South or Middle Island. When in latitude 46° 31’, off this 
coast, he remarks: “'This day we saw some whales and 
seals, as we had done several times after having passed the 
strait’ (Cook Strait); “‘ but we saw no seal while we were 
upon the coast of Hahienomawe” (North Island). On his 
second voyage (1773) he visited the west coast of what sub- 
sequently became the Province of Otago. He refers to the 
seals here as follows: “A gentleman killed a seal, one of 
the many which were upon a rock.” And next day writes : 
‘““We touched at the seal rock and killed three seals.’’ And 
again, in the same vicinity: “ Rowiny out to the outermost 
isles, where we saw many seals, fourteen of which we killed 
and brought away with us; and might have gut many more 
would the surf have permitted us to land with safety.” A 
few days later he writes: ‘We could only land in one 
place, where we killed ten.” 
The great navigator and others who followed him killed 
seals only for food. This, too, had been the practice of the 
Maoris. Mention of seals is constantly found in traditions 
relating to the southern portion of the South Island (east 
coast). Mr. T.Sarata, a Maori member of Parliament, tells 
believed, will be of general interest, as it relates to a chapter of history and 
exploration of which few records have seen the light. 
It must be remembered, in reading Mr. Chapman’s paper, that the pursuit of 
fur-seals in the Southern Hemisphere has been entirely confined to the killing of 
these animals en shore, at their breeding-stations. ‘‘ Pelagic sealing,” as now 
carried on in the North Pacific, has never been practised in the South ; where 
vessels have been employed merely as the means of reaching the otherwise inac- 
cessible resorts of the seals. hus Mr. Chapman’s observations, in so far as they 
bear onthe question of the preservation of the fur-seal of the North Pacific, go 
to show the extreme importance of protecting the littoral breeding resorts of the 
animals from all disturbances —G. M. Dawson. 
