12 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
Taking the Dundee portion of the above fleet alone, which consisted 
of 6 vessels, one, the Besolute, before mentioned, was lost, and the re- 
maining 5 vessels brought home only 41,606 seals (as against 71,272 
for the previous season), or an average of 8,321 each. It will thus be 
seen that for the whole of the Dundee vessels and 10 of the Saint John’s 
fleet the voyage, so far, must have been a most unprofitable one, even 
if the price of produce had been much higher than it now is. Practically, 
only the 5 vessels enumerated as having taken 15,000 seals and up- 
wards made paying voyages. 
The Greenland sealing has this season been an entire failure, not so 
much, perhaps, from the absence of seals as from the severity of the 
weather and the state of the ice preventing an approach to the breeding 
pack. The passage out was a fair one, and the seals were found on April 
2 in latitude 74° north, longitude 2° east, but the weather proved so 
tempestuous that they could not be reached until the 7th, and the 
strong gales had then broken up the ice into small patches, and 
thus dispersed the seals. Three Scotch vessels only were present, the 
Erik, Hope, and Earl of Mar and Kellie (the Eclipse did not take part 
in the young sealing), and they captured about 4,500 “ white-coats;” 
there were also 21 Norwegians, who secured some 31,500 others, in ad- 
dition to which there were also about 4,000 old seals killed, making a 
total of, say, 40,000 old and young seals. In consequence of the lateness 
of the season the young seals were in very fine condition, and probably 
16 days old, as the parents generally take to the ice about March 22. 
The old sealing later in the season was equally bad. The total number 
of old and young seals brought in from the Greenland and Davis Strait 
fishery was 7,964, against 32,302 in the season of 1885. 
I regret that in my last year’s notes, by an error, I stated that there 
were 18 Scotch vessels present at the Greenland sealing ; this was the 
total number both at Greenland and Newfoundland. I should have 
stated that 10 Scotch vessels took part in the Greenland and Davis 
Strait sealing, capturing 26,448 seals, and that the proceeds of 5,852 
other seals were brought home by the Germania from a station in the 
Cumberland Gulf. 
At Newfoundland and Greenland together, the 13 Scotch sealers last 
season killed 49,570 seals (against 103,574 in the season of 1885). 
These, at 6«. per skin, would represent a sum of £14,871 ($72,273); and 
the yield of 582 tons of oil, at £20 per ton, a further sum of £11,640 
($56,570) ; gross total, £26,511 ($128,843), against an estimate in 1885 
of £57,412 ($279,022)— -a sad falling off, which in this branch of the 
fishery must represent a considerable loss to those engaged in it. 
In the article u Seal Fishery,” in the 21st volume of the Encyclopaedia 
Britannica, p. 582, are some remarks with regard to what is there termed 
the u Jan-Mayen Seal Fishery,” which are likely to be very misleading. 
It is stated that the British, Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, and Germans 
all take part in the fishery, and that the number of seals taken by the 
