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NOTES ON THE SEAL AND WHALE FISHERY, 1894. 

 By Thomas Southwell, F.Z.S. 



I mentioned last year some of the vicissitudes of Newfound- 

 land Sealing, showing how much depends upon a right judgment 

 as to the position of the drifting pack on which the Seals would 

 be found, and that not all the long experience of those who year 

 after year have studied the uncertain movements of the ice, 

 carrying with it the breeding Seals, can do more than form an 

 approximate estimate of their whereabouts ; and even then 

 unlooked-for changes in the force or direction of the wind, or in 

 the intensity of the frost, may frustrate all their wisely-laid plans. 

 This was fully exemplified in the past season. 



The reports state that the spring of 1894 was a very stormy 

 one, and that the ice was in consequence in constant motion, and 

 difficult to navigate, thus often rendering the breeding Seals 

 unapproachable. 



When the steamers sailed on March 10th the ice was some- 

 what off the land, and all of them, with the exception of the 

 1 Hope,' kept outside ; as the Seals whelped on the inside of the 

 ice, the 'Hope ' struck them at once just to the N.E. of Cape St. 

 John; but two days afterwards, a N.E. gale coming on, they all 

 drifted into Green Bay, where they remained until the beginning 

 of April, when the 'Hope' returned with 16,499 Seals, the largest 

 number obtained by any one vessel of the 22 steamers. The other 

 steamers could not get amongst the Seals ; two or three of them, 

 however, contrived to do fairly well, but the rest did very little on 

 that part of the coast, and no old Seals to speak of were got later 

 in the season. The ' Algerine ' killed 10,719 young Harp Seals 

 in the Straits of Belleisle, and the ' Labrador ' took some 2400 

 young Hooded Seals off Cape Anguille, and the remainder of her 

 cargo further to the westward. Whilst butting through the ice 

 she had the misfortune to lose two men ; one poor fellow fell 

 through the ice under her bows, and a companion, coming to his 

 assistance, also lost his footing ; the vessel, at the same time 

 steaming ahead, crushed both of them ; one sank, but the body 

 of the other was recovered. The shore-fishery by landsmen and 

 schooners was very successful, and probably 150,000 Seals were 

 thus taken. 



Of the 22 steamers, one, the ' Newfoundland,' landed about 



