100 REPORT OP" BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 



(wlio was er.Ji'aged during the summer in making a special examination 

 of the rookeries for the United States Government) was called to the 

 circumstance, and that he undertook some further examination of it, of 

 which the result will, no doubt, eventually be rendered available. Dr. 

 Acland, who had just been installed as Medical OfHcer on St. Paul, 

 also told us that he had, within a few days, examined the bodies of six 

 of the dead pups from Tolstoi, ami that though rather too much decom- 

 posed for correct autopsy, he had been unable to find any signs of 

 disease, but that all those examined were very thin road without food 

 in the stomachs. 



353. It may be noted here that the carcasses thns examined must 

 have been those of pups which had died in the month of September, 

 or when no sealing schooners remained in Behring Sea. 



354. The body of a pup found by us on the North East Rookery on 

 the 5th August, which was still uiulecomposed, was preserved in alcohol, 

 and has since been submitted to Dr. A.Giinther, F. K. S.,of the British 

 Museum, who kindly ottered to make an examination of it. This is 

 quoted at length in Appendix (D). The stomach was found to contain 

 no food. The body was well nourished, with a fair amount of fat in 



the subcutaneous tissue, but no fat about the abdominal organs. 

 63 The lungs and windpipe were found in an intlannnatory condi- 

 tion. Kespecting the actual cause of death. Dr. Giinther says: 

 "Both the absence of food as well as the condition of the respiratory 

 organs aie sufiicient to account for the death of the animal; but which 

 of the two was the primary cause, preceding the other it is impossible 

 to say." 



355. It would be inappropriate here to enter into any lengthened dis- 

 cussion of the bearings of the above facts on the methods of sealing at 

 sea; but as, after the tentative adoption of various hypotheses, the 

 mortality of the young seals was with a renmrkable unanimity attrib- 

 uted to pelagic sealing by the gentlemen in any way connected with the 

 breeding islands, and as it has since been widely and consistently 

 advertised in the press as a further and striking proof of the destruct- 

 iveness of pelagic sealing, it may be permissible to allude to a few 

 cogent reasons, because of which the subject seems at least to require 

 consideration of a nuich more careful and searching kind: 



(1.) The death of so many young seals on the islands in 1S91 was 

 wholly exceptional and unprecedented, and it occurred in the very season 

 during which, in accordance with the modus vivenrli, every ettbrt was 

 being nmde to drive all pelagic sealers from Behring Sea. Those famil- 

 iar with the islands were evidently puzzled and surprised when their 

 attention was first drawn to it, and were for some time in doubt as to 

 what cause it might be attributed. 



(2.) The explanation at length very unanimously concurred in by 

 them, viz., that the young had died because their mothers had been 

 killed at sea, rests wholly upon the assumption that each female will 

 suckle only its own young one, an assumption which appears to be at 

 least very doubtful, and which has already been discussed. 



(3.) The mortality was at first entirely local, and though later a cer- 

 tain number of dead pups were found on various rookeries examined, 

 nothing of a character comparable with that on Tolstoi rookery was 

 discovered. 



(4.) The mortality first observed on Tolstoi and Polavina was at too 

 early a date to enable it to be reasonably explained by the kilbng of 

 mothers at sea. It occurred, as already explained, about the 15th or 

 2()th July, at a time at which, according "to the generally accepted dates, 

 as well as our own observations in 1891, the females had not begun to 



