THINGS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN.

King Country Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 265, 4 June 1910, Page 5

THINGS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN.

By W.B.

THE FUR SEAL. That these Islands were discovered by Abel Tasman in December 1642 — 268£ years ago—and re-discovered'by Commander James Cook, scientist, explorer, and the greatest humanist toward native races the world holds record of, is generally known. Since that day this land of our birth has been. visited by ships of all nations, but principally in the earlier years by British and American whalers and sealers. Adown the serried number of years, changes have occurred which these first ships, could they resail the seas of their voyaging, viewing the •shore in its primeval solitudes, would have no premonition of the populated expanses those solitudes would become. In those days the shores, especially in the southern, bays and inlets, were the secure homes of the sea lion, and leopard and otter, the latter of which is known as the fur seal, whose dressed skins, made into coats and jackets, wealthy ladies paid extravagant prices for. In those bays, inlets and outlying islands then, the merciless hunters killed them and salted their hides, careless whether their indiscriminate slaughter either drove them to seek other asylums to rear their young, or so decimated their numbers, that, years must elapse before the herds increased sufficiently to make long sea voyages a profit. And where they discovered colonies of these shy sea representatives of the felides or cat tribe, they left ashore parties to kill and preserve the skins at their-leisure, and the ships either went on expeditions of exploration for other seal islands, or to supplement their cruise, went whale hunting. The fur seal is the shyest of the tribe, and although an amphibian, cannot sleep in the water. Hence at sunset it returns to its perch, generally an outlying reef, cave or rock not covered by water, at the highest storm tides; up the craggy face of which it climbs by hooking its flippers in crevices and hoisting its heavy feetless bodies up, which operation and knowledge, by long use, has taught them every cranny of the upward path, which looking painful and impossible to the human onlooker is to them quite easy. When they arrive, it is singly, and as each climbs upward the next approaches, but discreetly keeps from under until the one before has reached the top; why, one can guess; probably in previous generations some climbers have missed their hold and fallen on those below When all are up, the lord of the herd waddles to the highest point from which he can get the best view, and mounts guard, and ho motionless is his vigil,'that he might be part of the brown basaltic rock — exactly his own colour —and but for a scarcely perceptible turn of his head, and steady listening ear, is perfectly motionless. His sense of smell is so keen, that though the perch reek withan acrid odour, he can instantly detect that of a stranger, and especially that of man, when he sounds a warning roar, and the whole herd is in motion and over the edge into the sea with them.

In one expedition at which I assisted the approach by calmest water lay on the windward side, so we decided to lay-off and if possible shoot the sentinel from a distance, but the motion of the boat preventing a steady aim, that idea was abandoned. Suddenly the genius of our party gave birth to a plan and nursed it until we saw it growing into a tangible youngster. The night was black dark, and only by stooping low the watcher lord's outline could be made out. His brilliant idea was to roar like a challenging male and by bringing the boat into a patch of calmer water, entice him to take up the challenge and desert his observation post, then by rowing in fast, and landing the killing party, back off again. The plan succeeded, for no sooner had the sentry heard the roar, than his fighting blood urged him to come down and punish the intruder. That was our time, and before he could locate out scent, three clubs crashed over his snout (his tenderest spot), and he was sentry no longer. Our haul that night was fifteen, which, considering their scarcity and smallness of the islet, and the price of a hide 30s, was no bad division amongst five. The early sealers were so intent on the present, and so ignorant of fur seal life habits, that they soon came back to barren grounds the .next season. For, as said, the creature is so timid that it will not return to where it smells h fellow creature's blood, or dead flesh. But the sealers were ignorant of this, and after the kill was over, and the escaped creatures returned, and found- their "perch" soiled with the flayed carcases of their chums, they fled back to the water, and sought other sleeping and nursing homes for their young. But the ancient Moriori knew, and took away the carcase unflayed, and washed away every trace of blood; and the seals returned season after season; and rookeries where the Moriori went for his annual seal harvest, were, when the white sealer came with his senseless destruction, very swiftly deserted.

The fur seal's food is fish, and penguin—for choice, penguin. These he can catch easier than fish. When penguin goes out at daylight for his meal of young squid and brit (developing shrimp spawn), the seal ranges his hunting parties in a crescentshaped company cruising gently to and fro just below the surface, and the stupid penguin, deceived by the calm water, suddenly feels a set of white sharp teeth probing his bowels; so with a squawk and a tremour, he makes a breakfast for Mr Kekeno (native name for fur seal) and is one less to harry the peace of squid and '.' brit.'' But Nature hag 'prdainecl that there shall be a margin of supply over demand and makes the latter slightly more prolific than its destroyer, and while the penguin hatches its eggs it does not return to the water. So Mr Kekeno during this time has to go elsewhere for kai; this gives the penguin a iespite to rear its young. O, Nature knows how to arrange her household with a just balance; else the world would soon be denuded of life.

It was not the skins alone sealers travelled half round the world to collect, their fat was tyred out for the oil to burn; for that was in pre-petro-leumn days. So after the skin was removed the fat layer was peeled off, and sliced into thin strips, and cast into pots, where it sizzled until quit of its oil. This was headed in casks, and helped with its profit as a byproduct. It was a free life, healthy and —solitary? Yes; solitary. But these sealers were mostly escaped convicts, to whom any life was preferable to forced labour under the lash ; and as man is an adaptable animal, they in time conformed to their necessities, and were content, especially as it gave them opportunities to slip away, per visiting whale ships, to alien countries. But they were not all black sinners on whom this tower of Siloam fell. My earliest tutor was an Oxford graduate, for some minor delinquency transported beyond seas; from which bondage he escaped on a sealing cutter, and from that to a whaler, which was wrecked on our coast, and only saving his skin and the rags an attrition up and down a jragged rock face left him, became this scribe's first tutor and later, family friend.