264 THE ASIATIC PUR-SEAL ISLANDS. 



for instance, in 1893. Daring that year the seals seem to have started north quite 

 early, but to have become checked in their progress, so that we find them massed during 

 the entire April, May, and part of June offshore east of Miako, on Hondo, between 

 latitude 39° 30' and 40° N., and the schooners do not seem to have made any catches 

 of importance in the Gulf of Mororan during that year. This lateness of the sealing 

 season of 1893 is very well shown in the diagram a on plate 112, which proves it to 

 have been from one to two weeks behind the normal. 



CONDITIONS OF PELAGIC SEALING OFF JAPAN. 



As I have already pointed out, the pelagic sealing on the Asiatic side is a direct 

 transplantation from the American side, the methods being in nearly every respect 

 identical. There is one difference, however, due to the Paris tribunal award, viz: 

 that on the American side the spear is used extensively in the capture of seals, while 

 on the Asiatic side the shotgun is used exclusively. 



The restriction upon the shotgun or rifle was placed by the arbitration tribunal for 

 the protection of the seal, but it is certain that the result has been quite the reverse. 

 In the early days of pelagic sealing on the American side — that is, before 1892 — the 

 gun was almost the only weapon used by the pelagic sealers. The result was that 

 the seals, from the continued shooting, were becoming shyer and shyer all the time. 

 The sealers, therefore, when in 1892 they commenced to hunt the Commander Island 

 seals, were much surprised to find them very tame and unsuspicious. It is curious to 

 read the testimony of the arbitration case and see how the sealers when asked about 

 the alleged difference between the American and the Asiatic seals would refer to the 

 tameness of the latter as a distinctive character. The case is exactly reversed now. 

 In 1896, in attempting to account for the falling off in the catches on the Asiatic side, 

 the sealers gave as one of the chief reasons that the seals were so wild that a boat 

 could not get near them. The use of the gun has now made the Asiatic seals as wary 

 as the American seals were formerly, and while during the first year the gun caused 

 greater damage among the seals, its continuance is distinctly to their advantage. It 

 is to be hoped that the spear may not come into use on the Asiatic side. 



While the methods in the past on the two sides have been practically alike, the 

 conditions are in some respects very different. I have in my possession some notes on 

 the pelagic sealing in Japanese waters by Oapt. H. J. Snow, than whom no man has 

 any more thorough experience in this matter, which will illustrate this feature better 

 than anything I could say. I consequently take the liberty to quote him, as follows: 

 "On the Asiatic side of the North Pacific the hunting season begins about the 1st of 

 March. One or two vessels have ventured out in January and February, but the 

 weather on this side during these months is so boisterous that hunting was impossible; 

 they were driven back to port with smashed boats and other casualties. The weather 

 on the American side is much better. The losses of vessels on the sealing grounds 

 there have been very few, and it is seldom that a boat's crew disappears, while qu the 

 Asiatic side, particularly off the Japan coast, the casualties have been many and 

 serious. Nearly 10 per cent of the vessels and over 10 per cent of those engaged in sealing 

 off Japan side of the Pacific have been lost during the season of 1894. 



" Sailing vessels leaving British Columbia or San Francisco for the Asiatic side 

 leave port about the end of December. On account of the prevailing winds at this 

 season, when crossing the Pacific they sail toward the Sandwich Islands, some passing 



