REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 95 



once "in the seventies" as early as July, he had seen the beaches at 

 North-East Point "strung with dead pups," after a heavy storm. 

 More or fewer pups are, iu fact, apparently killed iu this way every 

 year. 



329. On Robben Island, very considerable numbers of young pups 

 are killed by burgomaster gulls (Larus glmimis), which j)ick out their 

 eyes. This is so well known that a reward of 5 copecks (li<?.) is given 

 for each of these gulls killed. This gull is rather scarce on the Com- 

 mander Islands, but the natives there have noticed cases of pups being 

 killed in the same way. They are common about the Pribyloff Islands, 

 and are frequently seen on the rookeries, but no one there appears to 

 have observed them attacking young seals. 



330. The most generally recognized danger to the pups, of a con- 

 stant kind, while they are still upon the islands, is that resulting from 

 the adult bulls or seacatchie on the rookeries. These, when fighting, 

 or otherwise excited or disturbed, pay not the slightest attention to 

 the young in their vicinity, and overrun them without compunction in 

 such a manner as frequently to cause their death. Elliott doubts 

 whether more than 1 per cent, of the whole number of young in each 

 year is destroyed in this way-, but everyone who has paid the slightest 

 attention to the economy of the rookeries is fiimiliar with the frequent 

 occurrence of such deaths. 



331. In his Eeport upon the condition of affairs in Alaska (1875), the 

 same writer speaks of the j)resence on the rookeries of "decaying car- 

 casses of old seals and the many pups which have been killed accident- 

 ally by the old bulls while fighting with and charging back and forth 

 against one another."* In the Census Report substantially the same 

 passage is, however, jjaraphrased by the writer, with the substitution 

 of "few pups" for "many pups."t 



Professor Allan may also be cited in this connection, though he spe- 

 cially refers to alarms of a kind which can scarcely be strictly classed 

 under natural causes of destruction. He writes: "Constant care is 

 also necessary lest thoughtless persons incautiously approach the breed- 

 ing grounds, as the stampede of the seals which would result therefrom 

 always destroys many of the young." | 



332. When a sudden alarm causes a panic among the seals on a 

 rookery, and they make in consequence a rush in closely-huddled masses 

 for the water, very considerable numbers of pups may at any time be 

 killed. It is very easy in this way to "stampede" even the breeding 

 seals, and the necessity of preventing such stampedes is one of the main 

 reasons for preserving the vicinity of the rookeries from all intrusion 

 and disturbance. As already noted, the seals are alarmed particularly 

 by smell, and during the summer of 1891 a panic was caused on the 

 Reef Rookery of St. Paul Island by the drifting over it of the smoke 

 from a steamer which was entering the anchorage there. 



333. Nordenskiold refers particularly to this matter in his account 

 of the fur-seals of Behring Island, writing: 



The young ones are often smothered by the old when the latter, frightened in some 

 way, rush out into the sea. After such an alarm hundreds of dead pups are found 

 on the shore. § 



334. Killer whales ( Orca rectipinna) are among the more activeenemies 

 of the fur-seal. Mr. D. Webster, who, because of his long experience on 



*Page 149. See also "Monograph of North American Pinnipeds," p. 370. 



t United Slates Census K<^port, p. 12. 



t "Bull. Mus. Couip. Zool.," vol. ii., Part I, p. 97. 



$ "Voyage of the • Vti^ii,'" translation by Leslie, vol. ii, p. 290. 



