OUR ISLANDS 155 



out of water have a dim, near-sighted look, and as 

 they dry in the air there is often some whitish mat- 

 ter about the corners, but each of these babies had, 

 to a lesser degree, the same affliction that had 

 made that first mother partially sightless. I went 

 ashore to investigate, and of all the sea-lions on that 

 little beach there was hardly one, old or young, that 

 was without this disease. None of us had ever seen 

 this before, either on our previous expedition of 

 1923, or during the present one. Here was some- 

 thing like a leper colony, composed almost entirely 

 of the diseased animals, although this apparent 

 segregation was probably more accidental than in- 

 tentional, a voluntary rather than a compelled os- 

 tracism. The most pitiful sight was a small pup 

 that was quite blind. He lay at some distance from 

 any others, seemingly as well-nourished as any of 

 the healthier babies, so the law of Sparta is evi- 

 dently not in force among sea-lions. He was more 

 frightened than any of his fellows when I ap- 

 proached, and before I really touched him, he 

 began to scramble frantically away, crashing 

 among the stones so recklessly that I hastily re- 

 treated, lest he should hurt himself or stray too 

 far away from the spot where his returning mother 

 would expect to find him. 



He was being taken care of now, but I won- 

 dered how he would fare when next year there was 

 another pup, a new arrival that would claim all 

 the mother's attention. However, his future was 

 settled out of hand when Dr. Cady heard of this 

 island isolation ward. Next day the blind pup was 



