88 THE FUR SEALS OF THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 



Falling from cliffs may seem a rather singular source of death to anyone not 

 familiar with the conditions about the rookeries and with the habits of the pups, 

 although to one acquainted with them it is not surprising. Young seals are much like 

 children; they delight in exploring little caves and creeping into out-of-the-way nooks 

 and crannies, a trait which leads to some of the losses from drowning. They also 

 scramble along narrow ledges on the blutt's back of the rookery grounds, especially if 

 there be some miniature cave in which they can curl up and sleep, and in these explo- 

 rations it occasionally happens that even their clinging, rubbeiy feet slip and a pup falls 

 from 10 to 40 feet onto the sharp rocks below. In fact it was the sight of the little seals 

 thus scrambling about the bluffs of North Rookery, St. George, that first suggested 

 the thought that some might be killed in this manner, and a little later two bodies were 

 seen lying among the rocks in i)laces inaccessible from below. The lesult of such a 

 fall was siiown by the autopsy of the only one thus killed which could he recovered, 

 the others having fallen among the breeding seals, where their bodies could not be 

 reached. I'^veu when they do not fall I'ar enough to be killed, pups may fall into crev- 

 ices among the rocks whence escape is imi)ossible, and in these natural death traps 

 perish miserably from starvation. Such a traj), consisting of a narrow crevice at the 

 base of a long, steeply sloping rock, was noted on Kitovi wlien counting dead pups in 

 1897. The bodies of several little seals were taken from this one cranny, whose steep 

 sides i)revented escai)e, while the sloping rock above fcunied a most admirable (;hute 

 down which the pups slid to their di^ath. A still more curious case was that of a young 

 seal found ])enned beneath a rock by drifting sand, tiiis having accumulated to such 

 an extent that esca])e was impossible, and only room enough was left to enable the jmp 

 to breathe, the aperture being quite too small to allow the body to pass. 



The nnmber of pups thus caught among ro(;ks and starved, while not large, 

 is yet greater than one would have suspected, since 7 pups and' 1 cow were rescued 

 when counting the starved puj^s, and, of coniso, any cause of death, however small, 

 hel])S swell the total mortality. Now and then rocks fall on the pups instead of pnps 

 falling on the rocks, and at Polovina two young seals were seen lying beneath blocks 

 of stone which had droi)i)ed from tlic face of the(;lifl". It is rathei' siii])rising that this 

 does not occur more frequently; but while the rocks are cracked and shattered, rock- 

 falls rarely occur except in early spring before tlie seals have arrived. Deaths from 

 this source are probably more frequent on ('opi)er Island than on the Pribilofs, owing 

 to the fact tiiat the rookeries in many cases lie at tiic base of overhanging clifl's, and, 

 although accurate observations of the rookeries are difllicult from the manner in which 

 they are guarded, Mr. Harrett- Hamilton iiotic(^d in one Sjiot a bull and two cows 

 crushed beneath falhm rocks. 



The following note is taken from Dr. Stejneger's report on the llussiaii Seal Islands, 

 published in 1890. lie says, page 45, tbotnote: 



So steep are the. rocky walls behind the C'o])|ier Ishiiid rookeries, mid so close do the seals lie to 

 them, that falling masses of earth and rocks have occasionally cansed the death of many of the .animals. 

 Thns it is recorded (Otcliet. Ross Amer. M. Komi), ^-i-- l*^'^- V- -3) that on the l(!th of October, 184!), 

 dnring an earthqnake, a rocky wall fell down, Imrying a rookery on Coppei- Island. Another earth 

 slide on one of the Glinka rookeries in 18!W similarly resnitcMl in the killinf; of many seals. 



The death of a pup seen on the liillside at Upper Zapadni, jammed "beneath a 

 bowlder, was in all i>robability due ))rimarily to some rampant bull or fleeing bachelor, 

 for even on level ground a hurrying seal will overturn a good-sized stone, while on a 



