100 SEAL LIFE ON THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 



not in the water or at the water's edge or in positions where they could 

 be supposed to have been oust up by storms. 



On August -5 I counted 23 dead pups on Ketavie rookery. These 

 were all on the higher parts oftlie rookery, and there were none at the 

 water's edge. A few dead pups were found on the highest parts of sev- 

 eral of the rookeries, and these, as Mr. Townsend suggested, were such 

 as had been worried to death by the bachelors which bang about the 

 rear of the rookeries. On several occasions I saw young bachelor seals 

 snateh pui)s away from the i)ods on the higher parts of the rookeries, 

 and badger them about as if they liad been cows. 



On Ketavie rookery, on J idy 27, I saw a youngish bull at the back of 

 the rookery seize a pup out of one of the upper pods with his teeth and 

 carry it up the hillside. He dropped it several times, but picked it up 

 again. The pup i^resently bit at his assailant, and when the attention 

 of the latter was distracted, ran away down the hill again. Another 

 pup, apparently brought up the slope by this same bull, had crawled 

 in under a rock, so that it could not be reached. 



On August 5, on Ketavie, I saw a bachelor attempting to copulate 

 with one of these pui)S. The instinct of reproduction seems to spring 

 up at an early age in the seals, and hence these unnatural assaults on 

 the pu])S. I agree with Mr. Townsend in thinking that a portion, at 

 least, of the dead pui)s found high up on the rookeries are such as have 

 been worried to death in the manner indicated. Some of these pups, 

 however, are doubtless such as have wandered away from their mothers, 

 beyond the contines of the rookery, and have died of starvation. 



ESTIMATES OF NUMBER OF SEALS. 



When Mr. Townsend arrived on St. Paul in July we endeavored to 

 obtain data for an estimate of the number of seals present. With this 

 iu view we went to Ketavie, Lukannon, Tolstoi, and the Lagoon rook- 

 eries and made an actual count ns far as the conditions would permit. 

 As we proceeded it soon became apparent that to connt all of the 

 several classes of seals was impracticable. • The first difficulty that we 

 encountered lay in the fact that the roughness of the ground prevented 

 us from seeing some of the harems distinctly, and we were unable to go 

 down among the seals without stampeding them. Later we came upon 

 the triangles or wedges of breeding seals massed as close together as it 

 was possible for them to lie. It was necessary to use a field glass in 

 investigating these groups, and as there were no salient points which 

 could be picked out, as the count proceeded the eye soon became con- 

 fused and the count lost. The larger groups of pups presented the 

 same difficulty. This class was omitted later on, because on areas which 

 bad to be viewed from a distance so large a proportion of pups were 

 concealed by the bowlders that the count could not be at all relied upon. 

 We came eventually to count only the cows. At the Lagoon we counted 

 by passing in front of the rookery in a boat, using a low-power glass. 

 The harems were separated here by considerable intervals, and as the 

 whole rookery was in plain view there was no obstacle to counting. 



On Ketavie we counted without a glass for the most part, going down 

 among the seals as best we could, and the same course was pursued at 

 Lukannon and Tolstoi. 



It can not be claimed that our count is mathematically accurate, but 

 I believe that a sufficiently large area was covered to render the inac- 

 curacy of comparatively little consequence. An actual census could 

 be made only by driving all the seals inland and passing them in 



