506 THE FUR SEALS OF THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 



Opposite East Lauding the killers stopped and began swimming about in various 

 directions. Then they rounded up and began playing or something that seemed like it. 

 They went about in a small compass of water making it boil and foam. Occasionally 

 one of the small ones would jump entirely out of the water, much as a seal might. 

 They kept up this performance for half an hour and then moved back toward the 

 south. They were just out of range and could not be touched with the rifle. 



Nickoli Krukof said that the killers had rounded up a flock of seals and were eating 

 them. Seals were all the time passing unconcernedly to and fro along the shore. 



REEF. 



Went out on the Eeef again in the afternoon with Karp and Apollou. The killers 

 were to be seen passing the western side of the Eeef from the direction of Zoltoi Bay. 

 One of the sailors shot several times at them, though out of range, and it apparently 

 frightened the animals, for they swam quickly away. They appeared again off Sivutch 

 Rock to the east later 011 and had another tournament or round-up in the water. 



KILLERS. 



The killers are evidently about the islands every day, and the number of pups and 

 cows they eat must be large. Two instances are said to be on record where the animals 

 were taken. One had L8 and the other 21 pup carcasses in their stomachs. 1 Of course 

 it is not known how often they feed, but they seem to be at it all the time, judging 

 from the frequency of their appearance within the past few days. 



If a boat's crew is to be continued on the islands, they should be armed with guns 

 that can reach these animals and equipped with a boat that will enable them to be 

 hunted with safety in fair weather. 



I walked most of the length of the Eeef with Karp and Apollon. Saw no starving 

 pups among the thousands' of pups along the water's edge. There were 300 of these 

 pups when the count was made on September 29 and they have evidently all died 

 since. There is apparently no new crop of starved pups coming in to take their places. 

 But remembering how different were appearances and fact in the inspection prior to 

 the count, no great reliance can be placed upon this. 



The pups are very strong and active. They seem in every way quite as capable 

 of taking care of themselves in the water as the yearlings are. They certainly have 

 more blubber to work on. It would seem as if the pups were storing up a supply of 

 this article with which to stand out any period of fasting which may result in the 

 transition from milk to fish diet. 



A cow was started up on the Reef which acted as if b^nd, though her eyes seemed 

 all right. She plainly did not see. When touched she ran stumbling and falling over 

 rocks until she was well up into the parade ground. Then she lay down and would 

 not move. She went into much the same state as did the cows seen on Northeast Point 

 and Little Polovina a sort of cataleptic fit. In the course of fifteen minutes she got 

 up and slowly stumbled back to the rookery. Karp said that the bright sun blinded 

 her. Both Karp and Apollon said that she would be all right. 



1 On tracing these stories they seem to. have no basis in fact so far as the islands are concerned, 

 having apparently been transferred as sailors' yarns from events among the hair seals on the Labrador 

 coast. 



