548 SUBANTARCTIC ISLANDS OF NEW ZEALAND. [Mammalia. 



Beddard* has published an interesting paper on this seal, and I have followed 

 him in retaining the name Arctocephalus for the genus. 



Filholf records isolated individuals of Otaria cinerea, Peron, from Campbell 

 Island, but this species is not certainly known from New Zealand seas. 



Hah. — Snares, Auckland, and Campbell Islands. 



Arctocephalus forsteri, Lesson. (Fur-seal.) 



Otaria forsteri, Lesson, Diet. Class. Hist. Nat., xiii, 1828, p. 421. 



This animal was at one time hunted almost out of existence. " It has been 

 calculated that in 1824 ten vessels touched on the New Zealand coast and at the 

 islands, and took away seventy or eighty thousand skins, forty or fifty thousand 

 going to Sydney, and the remainder to England. In those days a seal-skin in Sydney 

 was worth about 15s. It is recorded that the industry was carried on so assiduously, 

 and the south-west portions of the coast were hunted so industriously by sealers, 

 who killed the females and their young for food, that there was fear of the seal in 

 these parts becoming extinct. Two years later a vessel spent six months in a cruise 

 searching for new sealing-grounds, and took back only 449 skins. Stewart Island 

 was a specially favoured spot for sealers^ and many of them also established stations 

 in Dusky Sound and in bays and inlets on the coast."J 



It is pleasing to be able to report that during recent years the numbers of the 

 fur-seal have increased, and if the poaching, which undoubtedly takes place, can be 

 stopped, there is no reason why the animal should not again people its old haunts. 

 When steaming past the Bounties in 1907 one or two seals were noticed on the rocks, 

 and Captain BoUons tells me that there is now quite a small colony of them. A 

 smaller number are to be found at the Snares, and a few individuals occur at places 

 on the west coast of the South Island, notably at Steeple Rock and The Cascades, 

 while a few others are occasionally met with in the Sounds. 

 [ ' Hab. — Australian and New Zealand seas. 



D 1 J _.' Lj ; I ■- ■ 



Fam. PHOCIDAE. 

 Macrorhinus, Cuvier, 1824. 



Macrorhinus leoninus, Linnaeus. (Sea-elephant.) 



Phoca leonina, Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. x, 1758, p. 37. 



Writing on the mammals of the National Antarctic (" Discovery ") Expedition, 

 Dr. Edward A. Wilson makes some interesting and valuable observations on the 

 sea-elephant, and points out that in its general bearing and life-history it approaches 

 the Otariidae, but that its osteological characters, as described by Flower, ally it 

 with the Phocidae. Respecting its distribution, Wilson § writes, "The Macquarie 

 Islands have long been known as a stronghold of this seal, but it has from time to 

 time been reported as equally abundant in the Kerguelen, Marion, Heard, and Crozet 



* Beddard, Trans. Zool. Soc, xii, 1890, p. 369. 



t Filliol, " Mission de I'lle Campbell," Zool., 1885, p. 28. 



X Hutton and Drummond, " Animals of New Zealand," 1904, p. 39. 



§ Wilson, Nat. Ant. Exped. Zool., ii, 1907, p. 53, 



