214 PELAGIC SEALING. 



Time of appear- and li ad evidently been starved to death. He 



auce of dead pups. 



further states that the number of dead pups in 

 1887 was much larger than in 1886. In 1888 

 there was a less number than in 1887 or in 1889, 

 owing-, he believes, to a decrease of seals killed 

 in Bering Sea that year ; but that in 1889 the 

 increase again showed itself^ Dr. W. S. Here- 

 ford, already mentioned as the resident physician 

 on the islands from 1880 to 1891, says: '^Tlie 

 loss of pup seals on the rookeries up to about 

 1884 or 1885 was comparatively slight, and was 

 generall}^ attributed to the death of the motlier 

 seal from natural causes. Coincident with the 

 increase of hunting seals in the sea, there was an 

 increase in the death rate of pup seals on the 

 rookeries."^ 

 ir.sTn isiT/ ^^^^'^ ^^^'- Stanley Brown, in examining the rookeries 

 in 1891, fixed the number of dead pups at be- 

 tween fifteen and thirty thousand.^ Captoin 

 Coulson, who was on the islands the same year, 

 says: " Thousands of dead and dying pups were 

 scattered over the rookeries."* And Colonel Mur- 

 ray fixes the number of dead that year at ''not less 

 than thirty thousand."^ Other witnesses support 



» Vol. II, p. 39. 

 «Vol. II, p. 32. 

 8 Vol. II, p. 19. 

 < Vol. II, p. 415. 

 'Vol. II, p. 74. 



