296 
IN FORBIDDEN SEAS 
until the latter pursuit was practically abandoned. 
The old schooner Diana was the last to quit the 
business. She kept at it until 1893, when she also 
gave it up as being no longer a paying venture. Her 
catches for her last four years’ hunting were fifty- 
three, thirty-five, forty-six, and fifty. After this, 
vessels occasionally dropped in at the islands on 
their way up to the sealing-grounds of the Bering 
Sea, and got a few pelts, whilst the Japanese each 
year also secured a few. 
Some few scores of the skins which figure in the 
foregoing catches of later years were taken north of 
the Kuril Islands, off the coast of Kamchatka. 
Soon after foreigners first began hunting in the 
neighbourhood of the Kuril Islands, the value and 
possibilities of the industry were pointed out to the 
Kaitakushi officials by foreigners who knew the 
business, and who were willing, in conjunction with 
Japanese merchants, to put money into it and pay 
handsomely for the privilege, provided they were 
backed by the Government in regulating, preserving, 
and protecting, the hunting. These proposals were 
rejected, and the results are too well known to need 
stating. Although the number of otters taken by 
the Kaitakushi’s hunters for 1873 to 1880 appears 
fairly large, double that number could easily have 
been secured had proper measures been adopted. 
As it was, foreign hunting-vessels reaped the benefit, 
and the consequence to-day is that this valuable 
industry, which could have been protected and pre¬ 
served indefinitely, is practically extinct. 
The policy pursued by the Japanese authorities 
in these matters has always been of an inconsistent 
character. In the case of sea-otter hunting, they 
