256 THE ASIATIC FUE-SEAL ISLANDS. 



The last account of seals on Mushir is tlie statement made by the skipper of the 

 Yakuno Maru, Captain Sagiro, to us at TTshishir in 1896, that he had seen a single 

 one a few days previously (August 24), consequently about simultaneous with my own 

 visit there when none were seen at all. 



c. Raikoke Eookbribs. 



I have mentioned above (p. 252) that Captain Snow came near being the discoverer 

 of one of these rookeries in 1883. However it was not until 1885 that Capt. E. P. 

 Miner, of Seattle, in the Penelope, made the lucky hit, though Captain Petersen, of 

 the Diana, claims to have given Miner the information and to have taken 600 seals 

 himself there that same year.i Snow's figures for 1885, year's slaughter on Eaikoke 

 do not include these, but allow 3,700 for the Penelope,^ 300 for the Felix, and 2,000 

 for a Japanse schooner;^ a total of 6,600 seals killed in one season. These were 

 probably all taken on the west rookery, as according to both Snow and Petersen the 

 one on the east side was only discovered later. 



Captain Miner's own account is as follows : 



In 1885 I went out as master of the Penelope and discovered a new rookery on Eaikoke Island, 

 one of the Kuril group. We got about 3,500 skius there. I had not enough salt to cure more and 

 went to Yokohama. When the news spread several other schooners went to this rookery and frightened 

 the seals away ; 1,600 was, I think, the most any one got. We went back there again from Yokohama, 

 but the other schooners had been ahead ofua and we got nothing. * ' * In 1886 I was again 

 master of the Penelope and visited Eaikoke Island, Mushir Eocks, and Srednoi, but got only about 500 

 seals (Fur Seal Arb., viii, p. 702). 



This great slaughter had evidently an immediate effect upon this rookery, for the 

 figures given for the next year scarcely allow 1,000 for Eaikoke, while in 1887 this 

 island only comes in for a similar figure, a few of which may even have been taken on 

 Srednoi and Mushir. Eighteen hundred and eighty-eight shows only 9 seals taken on 

 Eaikoke by the Diana and 6 in 1889 by the Nemo. During the following years some 

 of the few dozen skius obtained "here and there" in the Kurils by the Suisan Kaisha 

 have come from Eaikoke, thus apparently 179 in 1890 and 24 in 1891. We may 

 possibly look upon the 300 claimed by the skipper of Yakuno Maru to liave been 

 taken by him in 1892, and the 60 in 1893, as the result of an increase due to a few 

 years' rest,* during which year Petersen is said to have got 37 there in the Diana. 

 That some are left is shown by the fact that he took 12 seals, 3 bulls, and 9 3-year-old 

 ones, among the rocks and caves on the east side on August 19, 1896, a few days 

 before I visited the place. When I add that Mr. Nozawa's assistant saw 6 seals there 

 in 1893, the accessible records relating to this island are exhausted. 



d. Makankueu Eookbky. 



It is doubtful whether the aggregation of a few breeding seals can be properly 

 designated as a rookery, yet it is here treated separately for the sake of completeness. 



1 Snow refers these 600 skins to Eobben Island. 

 ^Miner himself says "about 3,500 skins." 



'It is possibly to this latter catch that the figures for 1885 given to Mr. Nozawa by the Ainu 

 hunter refer (see further on p. 258). 



* According to Mr. Nozawa (in letter) the Chishima Maru took 3 seals on September 23, 1893. 



