SEAL LIFE ON THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 



71 



To anyone not knowing the real conditions existing at Tolstoi rookery 

 on that particular 29th of July, the words quoted would imply that the 

 men who "found" the bodies of the "decomposed pups" were walking 

 around on the rookery, but the truth is we did not land on Tolstoi rook- 

 ery at all during the 29th of July, nor did we find any dead pups that 

 had been lying there for a week or more, nor did we find any. 



As I was the Government agent who accompanied the commissioners 

 and was in charge of the boat's crew of natives, I affirm that we sailed 

 from the village lauding to Zapadnie or Southwest Bay, where we 

 landed and walked on the rookery without seeing any dead pups; and 

 afterwards we sailed from Zapadnie and followed the trend of the shore 

 all around English Hay and over to Tolstoi, without making a landing 

 till we arrived home at the village. It was while we were passing Tol- 

 stoi someone asked the question, " What is that up there on the side- 

 hill?" Field glasses were used by several of the men, and some said 

 the objects pointed at were dead seals, some said "dead pups," and some 

 claimed they were not certain whether they were bones or rocks. 



Let it be borne in mind that we were looking at a very steep hill, 

 broken and rocky; that we were from 200 to 300 yards out from land, 

 and in a boat that was on a choppy sea, and therefore in constant 

 motion, and it will be readily understood why the native sealers were 

 so dull about dead pups on Tolstoi rookery. 



In section 349 they tell us that 



On the 19th of August * * we returned to St. Paul, and on the same day 

 revisited Tolstoi rookery. * Messrs. Fowler and Murray, who accompanied 



us on this occasion, admitted the mortality to be local, and the first-named gentle- 

 man stated that in his long experience he had never seen anything of the kind 

 before, and suggested that the mothers from this special locality might have gone to 

 some particular "feeding bank" and have been killed together by sea sealers. 



Without attempting to enter into an argument of what we actually 

 saw and said that day on Tolstoi rookery, I will say that it is true we, 

 Fowler, Murray, and Barnes, were astonished at the number of dead 

 pups we beheld, a number far exceeding anything we had ever seen 

 before, and it was in that spirit of astonishment that Mr. Fowler said 

 he never saw the like, meaning that he never saw so many at one time, 

 which is very easily accounted for now by the well-known fact that in 

 no year previous to 1891 were so many seals killed and taken by pelagic 

 sealers, as may be seen by a reference to the following table: 



Table of pelagic catch from 1868 to 1894, loth inclusive, from the be*t authorities and 

 sources of information, revised and corrected to date. 



The real number taken in 1891 was 78,000, but only those actually 

 sold in London are counted here, and, as there is no doubt that from 80 

 to 90 per cent of the total catch were female seals, it is not to be won- 

 dered at that from 20,000 to 30,000 pups were found dead on the rook- 

 eries in the fall of that year. 



