464 THE FUR SEALS OF THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 



A band of about a dozen seals are perched ou top of a sand dune overlooking 

 Tolstoi Sands. It is, doubtless, too steep on the other side for the seals to descend. 

 The seals on the beach and in the lagoon are apparently content. 



On looking for the 2 bulls hauled out yesterday fr.nn tlte drive, they were found 

 to have wandered about for considerable distances among the sand dunes, one of them 

 still lying in a hollow back from the lagoon. 



CLASSIFICATION OF DEAD PUPS. 



The following is a tentative classification of dead pups, with causes of death, 

 August 1 to 10 : 



Cut scalp with pus 2 



Kidney s swollen 1 



Drowned (6 on Tolstoi ) 12 



Inliiunniatiou of lungs 1 



Bitten by cow or bull 2 



Total . , .108 



Fellfrom cliff 3 



Under falling rocks 3 



Inflammation of bowels 2 



Skull fractured 2 



Large pups, trampled on, congested lungs 36 



Starved and trampled 11 



Starved 25 



Cause uncertain 8 



Of this number 55 were males, 51 females. In two cases the sex was not 

 determined. 



These pups were all dissected and the number represents about one-third of all 

 the pups on the rookeries fresh enough to be handled. 



Very young pups drowned ou places like Sea Lion Neck are washed into the sea 

 by the surf. But very few of these. The deadly surf nip is a myth invented to 

 account for the dead pups on Tolstoi Sands, washed by the surf from the rookery front. 



Many of the early starved pups which die between August 8 and 15 are tlie victims 

 of pelagic sealing. A mother might be returning from a week's absence on the feeding 

 ground when taken by a schooner on August 1. 



Mr. Lucas suggests the possibility of using a galvanic cauterizing instrument for 

 branding. It might make a scar with less effort. 



Mr. Lucas reports that Mr. Barrett- Hamilton examined a bull from Zoltoi killed 

 for Professor Thompson. There was no sign of scrotum, testes being withdrawn into 

 the body. A testicle examined was shrunken and hard, yielding practically no liquid, 

 and thus showed no trace of spermatozoa when seen under microscope. 1 



It would seem that in the fourth, exceptionally in the third year, the testes descend 

 into the scrotum, and that in the old bulls at least they are retracted at the close of 

 the seasom's work. 



BRANDED PUPS. 



Mr. Clark visited Lukaniu rookery in the afternoon to look after the branded 

 pups. Twenty six of them are to be seen along the water front, doing much as the 

 other pups are doing. Some are going into the water, others coming out. One is 

 nursing. 



1 The absence of testes in the scrotum was characteristic of all bulls killed and was due to the 

 fact that in traveling the animal draws the testes into the body. In a bull killed on Zapadni in 

 October the same phenomenon was observed, but pressure ou the abdomen caused the testes to appear, 

 and they could be forced back by pressure. See notes for October 11 and 17. 



