266 THE ASIATIC FUE-SEAL ISLANDS. 



"The losses, unfortunately, this season (1894) have not been confined to boats, 

 some schooners having been lost with all hands, and one wrecked on Taroke Island, 

 off the east coast of Yezo, with no loss of life. The schooner Mascot, of San 

 Francisco, was lost by capsizing in a violent gale in February. The Matthew Turner, 

 also of San Francisco, met with a similar end on the 24th of April, during a gale of 

 hurricane force. The schooners Fortuna, San Diego, TJnga, and Mary E. Thomas are 

 also supposed to have met with a like fate, for they have never been seen nor heard 

 of since they reached the hunting grounds, in the early part of the season. 



"1893 was not so fatal to vessels on the Japan coast, one only, the steam schooner 

 Narwlial being lost on Ku-saki when starting out from Yokohama early in the season. 

 Quite a number of boats, however, were lost, and several men were washed overboard 

 during gales. The schooners Umbrina, Anaconda, Louisa D., Webster (2 boats), 

 Walter L. Rich, Arctic, and Fawn (canoe) lost boats and crews drowned, the two 

 latter on Copper Island grounds." 



Captain Snow also mentions several cases in which boats were smashed by killer 

 whales, and men were killed or drowned, such accidents having happened to the 

 Libbie and Bowhead, and the G. O. White. He also narrates how the Mermaid in 1893 

 was so badly damaged by being struck by the tail of an immense whale that she had 

 to run for Yokohama where she was docked and repaired. 



PROPORTIONATE NUMBER OF SEALS SHOT AT AND SKINS SECURED. 



Captain Funcke's log (of the Golden Fleece) for 1896, extracts of which are given 

 on p. 276, is very interesting in several respects. By a very fortunate mistake he 

 understood the phrase " number of seals shot" in the ninth line of the OfScial Sealing 

 Log to mean "number of seals shot a<" and, consequently, he entered the number of 

 shots fired at seals during the day. The difference between this figure and the number 

 of seals obtained gives the misses. From the general testimony of the sealers it has 

 become pretty commonly accepted that in shooting with shotguns the seals "lost" 

 only amount to about 5 per cent, or in extreme cases to 10 per cent of the total number. 

 But the actual figures as uncontestibly proven by the daily entries are very different 

 indeed. Out of 1,367 seals shot at only 1,084 were actually secured, or in other words 

 the misses are a little over 20 per cent of the total number. That this is not a case of 

 uncommonly bad shooting is shown by the fact that the catch was a comparatively 

 large one, and still more by the same percentage obtaining during both seasons, as 

 otherwise the increased practice of the hunters would have reduced the number 

 toward the end. But if we look at the log, we will find that during the spring cruise 

 974 were shot at and only 769 secured, or about 21 per cent lost, while during the 

 summer cruise 393 seals were shot at and 314 secured, or iO per cent lost. Even 

 during the last month (August) the loss is over 19 per cent (277 shot at, 224 secured). 



Upon my recommendation Captain Funcke continued in 1897 to note daily the 

 number of seals shot at, and the result is even more unfavorable than in 1896. During 

 the spring season off Japan 866 seals were fired upon, but only 636 skins secured, 

 which means that the misses amounted to about 36 per cent of the total number of 

 seals killed. 



Of course, it is not intimated that all of the seals fired at were mortally wounded, 

 but from the nature of the hunt and the weapons used it is safe to say that the 

 majority must have been hit and wounded more or less severely. 



The other respect in which Captain Funcke's log is very instructive is in regard 

 to the relative number of the males and females killed during the migration and on 



