68 TRANSACTIONS. 1 897-8. 



aria found in great numbers in the intestines of the young 

 seals. It attacks the intestinal walls and destroys thern, thus 

 causing congestion and subsequent death. The deaths of 

 nearly all the pups examined were due to this worm, and 

 though we left the islands early in August and could not 

 determine whether as many young died from this cause late 

 in the season as in early August there is no reason to doubt 

 that such is the case. The proportion of pups that starve to 

 death has not yet been even roughly determined. 



The great similarity in the appearance of female seals 

 makes it difficult, if not wholly impossible, to determine with 

 any degree of accuracy the movements of individuals. For 

 this reason no definite statement can be made as to how fre- 

 quently they go into the water, how long they remain 

 there, or how often they suckle their young. It is known 

 that for the first two weeks, or longer, after a pup is born its 

 mother does not leave it. After that as the pup grows older 

 and is suckled less frequently, the mother seals go into the 

 water and hundreds of them may be seen any day playing 

 and swimming about near the rookeries. Like the males they 

 require food only at long intervals and when it is needed it 

 can be procured within a very few miles of the rookeries. 

 Under the Paris Regulations no seals may be killed at sea 

 within 60 miles of the breeding islands and this protected 

 area affords in my opinion ample protection to the nursing 

 mothers, though doubtless they do sometimes, perhaps fre- 

 quently, go a greater distance from the land, though it is not 

 necessary to do so in order to procure food. Pelagic sealers 

 report the taking of many seals in milk at long distances 

 from the islands, and Mr. Andrew Halkett, whose admirable 

 report on his investigations at sea in 1896, I have had an op- 

 portunity of reading, reports a very large percentage of this 

 class of seals among those taken by the schooner upon which 

 he lived. The wide variance between the percentage of 

 females in milk taken by different schooners shows that this 

 class of seals is much more numerous in some parts of Behring 

 Sea than in others. Many of these females are the mothers 

 of the young who died upon the rookeries from the effects of 

 the Uncinaria and other causes, and of course the killing of 

 such females entails no further loss. Many others are killed 

 after the young are able to sustain themselves and no starva- 

 tion of pups follows the killing of such mothers. Some pups 

 undoubtedly die of starvation but the number is small and 

 even when the mother is killed before the ^oung one can pro- 



