THE ZOOLOGIST 



No. 728.— February, 1902. 



NOTES ON THE SEAL AND WHALE FISHERY 



OF 1901. 



By Thomas Southwell, F.Z.S. 



The Newfoundland sealing, although as a whole fairly suc- 

 cessful in the past season, presented some interesting features 

 which will be referred to farther on. The number of steamers 

 which left port was twenty — an increase of one, namely, the 

 ' Southern Cross,' which made her first sealing voyage, having 

 been purchased by Messrs. Murray and Sons on her return from 

 her Antarctic exploration voyage of 1899-1900 ; but, as the 

 4 Hope ' came to an untimely end, the number actually employed 

 was the same as in the season of 1900. Of these, four vessels 

 went to the Gulf fishery ; the rest to the east coast. 



The usual day for the departure of the steamers is the 10th 

 of March, but that day falling on Sunday in 1901, the vessels 

 took their departure on the 9th, and, finding the young Seals 

 almost at once, some very speedy returns were the result. The 

 first to arrive was the ' Southern Cross,' which reached Harbour 

 Grace on the 20th of March, after an absence of only nine and a 

 half days, with a cargo of 26,563 Seals; she was quickly followed 

 by the ' Aurora,' which arrived at St. John's on the morning of 

 the 22nd, heavily laden with the produce of 32,407 old and young 

 Harps and Hooded Seals ; others arrived in rapid succession. 

 The ' Southern Cross ' reached the whelping ice, some eighty 

 miles north by east of the Funk Islands, on the morning of the 

 12th March, and had the monopoly of the locality for some time ; 

 Zool. 4th ser. vol. VI., February, 1902. e 



