PELAGIC SEALING IN ASIATIC WATERS. 261 



III.-PELAGIC SEALING IN JAPANESE WATERS. 



BEGINNING- OF PELAGIC SEALING ON ASIATIC SIDE. 



As I have already pointed out in my " Eussian Fur-Seal Islands," page 122, ante, 

 page 190, pelagic sealing was practically unknown on the Asiatic side of the Pacific 

 Ocean until the summer of 1891, when several American and British Columbian 

 schooners invaded the western portion of Bering Sea, and that it really began in 

 earnest only in 1892, when practically the whole sealing fleet, due to the continued 

 closing of eastern Bering Sea pending the Paris Tribunal arbitration, went across 

 during the summer. But this was not yet pelagic sealing in Japanese waters, as most 

 of the catches during those years were made on the feeding grounds of the Commander 

 Islands. 



However, a beginning is said to have been made in 1890, when the G. 0. White, 

 Captain Hagman, came over and took 680 seals, according to Captain Snow; but as 

 this vessel was also on the Copper Island feeding grounds, and even pos^sibly raided 

 the rookeries,' it is doubtful whether all the 680 skins were secured in Japanese waters- 



Oaptaiu Snow states also that "in 1891 this same vessel again visited the Japan 

 coast and secured nearly 1,700 skins,^ and further that in 1892 there were 9 vessels 

 which got between them 14,400 seals. 



I have myself been able to trace only 8 schooners hunting off the coast of Japan 

 in the spring of 1892, all American, their total catch amounting to less, viz, only 

 32,064 skins.= 



1 suspect, however, that Captain Snow's figures are nearer the truth, in which 

 case, however, the number of schooners must have been greater. 



' See Stejneger, Russ. Fur-Seal Islands, page 122. The actual figures seem to be less, though the 

 testimony varies from 476 seals off Japan and 59 off Copper Island (Fur Seal Arh. Proc, viii, p. 728) 

 to 550 seals off Japan (probably including 25 on the American coast) and 25 in Bering Sea (Fur Seal 

 Arb. Proc, iii, p. 432). 



2 Is this not a confusion with the C. H. White, which got 1,687 seals off the Japan coast in 1891? 

 (Fur Seal Arb., viii, p. 727.) 



^In the Fur Seal Arbitration Proceedings, vii, p. 407, there is a statistical list of the "Sealing 

 Fleet and Pelagic Catch of 1892," which is incorrect, apparently, so far as the American vessels are 

 concerned, as will be seen by a comparison between the figures of that list and those of the references 

 in my list of the schooners hunting off the Japan coast in the spring of 1892. It will be seen that the 

 Asiatic catch of the United States schooners was at least 16,049, thus reducing the catch on tl\e 

 American side to less than 11,988. 



According to the printed documents a ninth schooner should be added to the above list of 

 schooners hunting off Japan in 1892, for iu the "Reports of the Condition of Seal Life on the Rookeries 

 of the Pribilof Islands, 1893-1895" (Fifty-fourth Cong., first session. Senate Doc. 137), pt. ii, p. 55, 

 there is found what purports to be an abstract from the sealing log of the "Canadian schooner 

 Triumpli ( Jajian coast). Cox, master — 1892." But there is evidently some mistalie here. The log in 

 question is not that of the Triumph, which, in 1892, sealed off the American coast, taking 284 skins on 

 the "Upper Coast" and 257 on the Asiatic side. The log appears, however, to be that of the Carlolla 

 G. Cox, William Byers, master, for the year 1893, with a few slight changes (Venning's Report, 

 1893, p. 104). 



