474 RESULTS. 



It was noticed by everyone on tlie island at this time that as the 



seals decreased on the rookeries from year to year 



A. Mel o red off, p. 143. the number of dead pups increased, until in 1891 



the rookeries were covered with them. From 



1884 the schooners kept on increasing, until in 1891 there was more 



titan one hundred. These schooners care very little about coming to 



the islands to take seals on the land, for they only have to hover 



around the fishing banks from 50 to 200 miles away and take all the 



seals they want. It is to these banks the cow seals go to feed after 



the birth of their young, and it is here they are shot and killed and 



the pups are left to starve and die on the rookeries. 



Last year I saw thousands of such pups. 



On the 19th of August, 1891, I saw the young pups lying dead upon 



the rookeries of St. Paid, and I estimated their 



Jos. Murray, p. 74. number to be not less than 30,000; and they had 



died from starvation, their mothers having been 



killed at the feeding grounds by pelagic hunters. 



Simeon Melovidov, p. And as the seals decreased we found the rook- 

 146 - cries covered with dead pups, which in 1891 lay 



in heaps npon the ground. 



Q. Have you noticed any dead pups on the rookeries this past sea- 

 sou, and in what proportion to former years? — A. 

 J. C. Eedpath, p. 110. I have seen an unusual number of dead pups this 

 year on the breeding grounds; I may say twice 

 as many as formerly. 



In 1891 the rookeries on St. Paul Island were covered, in places, with 



dead pups, all of which had every symptom of 



J. c. Redpath, p. 152. having died of hunger, and on opening several 



of them the stomachs were found to be empty. 



The lowest estimates made at the time, placing the number of dead 



pups on the rookeries at 25,000, is too high. 



Cause of Death of Pups. 



Tage 215 of The Case. 



The majority of the pups, like all healthy nursing animals, were 

 plum]) and fairly rolling in fat. I have watched 



J. C. S. AJcerly, p. 96. the female seals draw up out of the water, each 

 pick out its pup from the hundreds of young 

 seals sporting near the water's edge, and with them scramble to a clear 

 spot on the rookery, and lying down give them suck. Although I saw 

 pups nursing iu a great many cases, yet I never saw one of the sickly 

 looking pups receiving any attention from the female. They seemed to 

 be deserted. 



The cause of the great mortality amongst the seal pups seemed to 

 me to have ceased to act, in great part, before my first visits to the rook- 

 eries; for subsequent visits did not show as great an increase in the 

 masses of dead as I would have expected, had the causes still been in 

 active operation. It seemed to me that there were fewer sickly looking 

 pups at each subsequent visit. This grew to be more and more the case 

 as the season advanced. When 1 visited the rookeries for the purpose 



