472 RESULTS. 



In the latter part of July, 1891, my attention was called to a source 

 of waste, the efficiency of which was most start- 



J. Stanley Brown, p. 18. lingly illustrated. In my conversations with the 

 natives I had learned that dead pups had been 

 seen upon the rookeries in the past tew years in such numbers as to 

 cause much concern. By the middle of July they pointed out to me 

 here and there dead pups and others so weak and emaciated that their 

 death was but a matter of a few days. By the time the British com- 

 missioners arrived the dead pups were in sufficient abundance to 

 attract their attention, and they are, I believe, under the impression 

 that they first discovered them. 



By the latter part of August deaths were rare, the mortality having 

 practically ceased. An examination of the warning lists of the combined 

 fleets of British and American cruisers will show that before the middle 

 of August the last sealing schooner was sent out of Bering Sea. These 

 vessels had entered the sea about July 1 and had done much effective 

 work by July 15. The mortality among the pups and its cessation is 

 synchronous with the sealing fleet's arrival and departure from Bering 

 Sea. 



There are several of the rookeries upon which level areas are so dis- 

 posed as to be seen by the eye at a glance. In September Dr. Akerly 

 and I walked directly across the rookery of Tolstoi, St. Paul, and in 

 addition to the dead pups in sight they lay in groups of from three to 

 a dozen among the obscuring rocks on the hillside. From a careful 

 examination of every rookery upon the two islands made by me in 

 August and September, I place the minimum estimate of the dead pups 

 to be 15,000, and that some number between that and 30,000 would 

 represent more nearly a true statement of the facts. 



1 did not observe any unusually large number of dead pups on the 



rookeries in my visits to the islands until the year 



John C.Cantwell, p. 408. 1891. During the month of September of that 



year, in company with Mr. J. Stanley Brown, I 



visited the Starry Ateel and eastern rookeries on St. George Island 



and saw more than the average number of dead pups and a great many 



living pups, evidently in very poor condition, and either dead or dying 



from starvation, differing in this respect from the condition in which 



they are ordinarily found at this time of the year. Subsequently, in 



November, 1891, I visited the Polovinia rookery on St. Paul Island, 



and in the course of one hour's slow walking, covering perhaps 1£ miles 



of ground, estimated the number of dead pup seals to be not less than 



1,000. I consider this number enormously in excess of the normal 



mortality. 



No mention was ever made of any unusual number of dead 

 pups upon the rookeries having been noticed at 



W. C. Couhon, p. 415. any time prior to my visit in 1870, but when I 

 again visited the islands in 1890 I found it a sub- 

 ject of much solicitude by those interested in the perpetuation, and in 

 1891 it had assumed such proportions as to cause serious alarm. The 

 natives making the drives first discovered this trouble, then special 

 agents took note, and later on I think almost ev r eryone who was allowed 

 to visit the rookeries could not close their eyes or nostrils to the great 

 numbers of dead pnps to be seen on all sides. In company with Special 

 Agent Murray, Captain Hooper, and Engineer Brerton, of the Corwin, 

 I visited the keel' and Gobatck rookeries, St. Paul Island, in August, 



