DEAD PUI'S ON THE ROOKERIES. 467 



assistants and the natives that a very large number of pups had per- 

 ished the preceding- season, a part of them dying- upon the islands and 

 others being washed ashore, all seeming to have starved to death. The 

 same thing occurred in 1886 and in each of the following years to and 

 including 1889. Even before I left the islands, in August, 1886, 1887, 

 and 1888, I saw hundreds of half-starved, bleating, emaciated pups 

 wandering aimlessly about in search of their dams, and presenting a 

 most pitiable appearance. 



But facts came under my observation that soon led me to what I 

 believe to be the true cause of destruction. For 

 instance, during the period of my residence on t. f. Morgan, p. 61. 

 St. George Island, down to the year 1881, there 



were always a number of dead pups, the number of which I can not 

 give exactly, as it varied from year to year, and was dependent upon 

 accidents or the destructiveness of storms. Young seals do not know 

 how to swim from birth, nor do they learn how for six weeks or two 

 months after birth, and therefore are at the mercy of the waves during 

 stormy weather. But from the year 1881 down to the period when I 

 left St. George Island, there was a marked increase in the number of 

 dead pup seals, amounting, perhaps, to a trebling of the numbers 

 observed in former years, so that I would estimate the number of dead 

 pups in the year 1887 at about five or seven thousand as a maximum. 



I also noticed during my last two or three years, among the number 

 of dead pups, an increase of at least 70 per cent of those which were 

 emaciated and poor, and in my judgment they died from want of nour- 

 ishment, their mothers having been killed while away from the island 

 feeding, because it is a fact that pups drowned or killed by accidents 

 were almost invariably fat. Learning further, through the London 

 sales, of the increase in the pelagic sealing, it became my firm convic- 

 tion that the constant increase in the number of dead pups and the 

 decrease in the number of marketable seals and breeding females found 

 on the islands during the years 1885, 1886, and 1887 were caused by 

 the destruction of female seals in the open sea, either before or after 

 giving birth to the pups. The mother seals go to feeding grounds 

 distant from the islands, and I can only account for the number of 

 starved pups by supposing that their mothers are killed while feed- 

 ing. 



I visited the Pribilof Islands in 1890 and made a careful study of the 

 conditions of seal life on those islands. I discov- 

 ered late in the season a large number of dead Chas. W. Price, p. 521. 

 pups lying upon the rookeries, which had the 

 appearance of having been starved to death. 



NO DEAD PUPS PRIOR TO 1884. 



Page 212 of Tlio Case. 



Poaching in Bering Sea had not begun in those years [from 1S68 

 to 1876] and it was a rare thing to find a dead 

 pup about the shores or on the rookeries. I had Geo. B. Adams, p. 158. 

 frequent occasion after the close of the breeding- 

 season to visit all parts of the island, and there was no appearance of 



