REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 101 



leave tlie rookeries in large iminbers, or, when leaving tliem, to do n*» 

 more than swim or play about close to the shore. It has already been 

 stated that Bryant gives the 25th July as the opening of the period in 

 whieh tlie females begin to leave the rookeries. Maynard states that 

 the bulls, cows, and pups rejnain within the rookery limits to tlie same 

 date, while Elliott places this change in the rookeries between the end 

 of July and the 5th and 8tli August. It is, moreover, acknowledged by 

 the best authorities, that the dates in seal life upon the islands have 

 become later rather than earlier in recent years, as compared with those 

 in which the dates above cited were ascertained. In the case of the 

 death of pnps after the middle of August, it might be an admissible 

 hypothesis that the mothers had been killed at sea, and that subse- 

 quently to such killing the young had had time to starve to death, but 

 not at dates earlier than this. In the present case, the mortality began 

 long before that date, and it seems probable that the deaths which 

 occurred later must be explained by the same cause, whatever it may 

 have been, extending from the original localities and becoming more 

 general. 



356. The causes to which the mortality noted may be attributed with 

 greatest probability are the following, but the evidence at present at 

 disposal scarcely admits of a final attribution to one or other of them. 

 If, however, the examination made by Dr. Acland of several of the 

 carcasses be considered as indicative of the state of the whole, one of 

 the two first is likely to aftbrd the correct explanation : 



{a.) It is well known that m consequence of the decreased number of 

 "killables" found on the hauling- grounds in late years, it has been found 

 necessary to collect these close to and even on the edges of the breeding 

 rookeries, and that it has thus been impossible to avoid the collection 

 and driving to the killing grounds with the ^'killables'' of all sorts of 

 seals not required, including seacatchie and females. It is also known 

 that the driving and killing in the early part of the season of 1891 was 

 pushed with unwonted energy, taking into consideration the reduced 

 number of seals, and it appears to be quite possible that the females 

 thus driven from their young, though afterwards turned away from the 

 killing grounds in an exhausted and thoroughly terrified state, never 

 afterwards found their way back to their original breeding places, but 

 either went off" to sea or landed elsewhere. The places where the 

 greatest number of dead pups were first seen on Tolstoi and Polavina 

 were just those from the immediate vicinity of which drives were most 

 frequently made. 



{h.) The appearances, indicating a local beginning and greatest inten- 

 sity of mortality, with its subseciuent extension to greater areas, luiglit 

 reasonably be explained by the origination and transmission of some 



disease of an epidemic character. 

 C4 (c.) The circumstances where the mortality was observed to be 



greatest appeared to be such as to be explicable by a panic and 

 stampede with consequent over-running of the young, but, if so, such 

 stampedes must have occurred more than once. They might not 

 improbably have resulted from attempts to collect "drives" too near 

 the breeding rookeries. 



{(1.) It is entirely within the bounds of probability that raiders may 

 have landed on at least Tolstoi and Polavina rookeries without any oue 

 upon the islands becoming cognisant of the f(ict. Females would in 

 such a case be killed in greatest numbers, for these occupy the stations 

 most easily got at from the sea-side, and the killing upon the rookery 

 ground would also unavoidably have resulted in " stampeding" large 

 numbers of seals of all classes. 



