RELATING TO PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 19 



By the time the British cominissiouer.s arrived the dead pups were in 

 sufficient abundance to attract tlieir attention, and they are, I believe, 

 under the impression that tliey first discovered them. 1 procured a 

 number of these i^ups, and Dr. Akerly, at my request, made autopsies, 

 not only at the village, but later on upon the rookeries themselves. 

 The lungs of these dead pups floated in water. There .^ 



"was no organic disease of heart, liver, lungs, stomach, "topsies. 

 or alimentary canal. In the latter there was but little and often no 

 fecal matter and the stomach was entirely empty. Pups in the last 

 stage of emaciation were seen by me upon the rookeries, and tlieir 

 condition as well as that of the dead ones left no room to doubt that 

 their death was caused by starvation. By the latter 

 part of August deaths were rare, the mortality having °'''"' ^^' ''**'^'-''*'""- 

 practically ceased. An examination of the warning lists of the com- 

 bined fleets of British and American cruisers will show that before the 

 middle of August the last sealing schooner was sent out of Bering- Sea. 

 These vessels had entered the sea about July 1 and had done much 

 effective work by July 15. The mortality among the i)ui)s and its ces- 

 sation is synchronous with the sealing fleet's arrival and departure 

 from Bering Sea.. 



There are several of the rookeries upon which level areas are so dis- 

 posed as to be seen by the eye at a glance. In Se[»tember Dr. Akerly 

 and I walked directly across the rookery of Tolstoi, 

 St. Paul, and in addition to the dead pups in sight i^^^'^ery at loistoi. 

 they lay in groups of from three to a dozen among the obscuring rocks 

 on the hillside. From a careful examination of every rookery upon the 

 two islands made by me in August and September, I place the mini- 

 mum estimate of the dead pups to be 15,000, and tliat 

 some number between that and 30,000 would represent ^^^^"^ ''*' '^"''^'^ 

 more nearly a true statement of the facts. 



Upoii examining the Bering Sea catch for 181)1, as based upon the 

 records of the Victoria custom-house, I ascertained that 

 nearly oO,000 seals had been taken by the Britisli fleet iJ;''*'"' ^-^ ^'e«^^«i« i° 

 alone in Bering Sea during the summer of 1891. When 

 there is added to this the catch of the American vessels, the dead pups 

 upon the rockeries, and allowances made for those that ^^ , ,. 



■•,.„, , ' - , , , ... Desd-uctiou of life. 



are killed and not recovered we have a catch which 

 will not only nearly reach in numbers the quota of male seals allowed 

 to be taken upon the islands in years gone by, but we have a catch in 

 the securing of which destruction has "fallen most heavily ui)on the pro- 

 ducing females. This is borne out by a further fact. The young bach- 

 elor seals can lie idly on the hauling grounds and 

 through the peculiarities of their physical economy sus- ,„;^ie!^.* ''*"^'''^*" "° ^®" 

 tain life with a small supply of food, but the cows must 

 range the ocean in search of nourishment that they may meet the demands 

 made upon them by their young. That seals go a great distance from 

 the islands I know from personal observation, for we saw them lUO miles 

 to the northward of the island on the way to Niinivak. That the females 

 outnumber the males ten to one is well known, other- Female teedin 

 wise the hauling grounds would present such an array **'"'* ** '^^ ^°^" 

 of killable seal that there would be no necessity for the Government to 

 suspend the annual quota. It inevitably follows that the females are 

 the class most preyed upon in Bering Sea. No class of animals which 

 bring forth but a single offspring annually can long sustain itseU'against 

 the destruction of the producers. 



As a result of my investigations 1 beUeve that the destruction of fe- 



