DR. Jordan's notes in isoe. 161 



rocks, on which the female seals are now mostly gathered. On the shore are a small 

 pod of females and a number of groups of pups. No males, young or old, appear. 



In the first little pod of 20 pups, 6 are evidently starving; 8 recently starved 

 dead ones lie there, and there are 4 dead ones of older date, but also emaciated. 



Zapadui rookery seems not much larger than Little Polavina, of St. Paul. On 

 the rookery ground are 11 fresh starved pups, besides 14 which seem, some of them 

 at least, to have been starved, but which are now largely decomposed. 



There are many carcasses of dead seals on the beach nearly devoured, and dense 

 swarms of small flesh flies abound, their maggots destroying a dead pup or dead seal 

 carcass very quickly. Evidently of the very earlie!^t pups only fragments remain. 

 The air seems drier and warmer than on St. Paul, and a dead pup remains fresh only 

 for a short time. Many which have not been more than a week dead have been 

 reduced to skeletons and hair. 



A pod of 46 pups on shore is examined. As a whole they seem much less active 

 than Pribilof pups, smaller, sleepier, and more stupid. Seventeen of the number are 

 evidently starving. Some look plump, but it is probable that nearly all of these land 

 pups are really starving; the large and well-fed ones have taken to the water. 



Other pods show similar characteristics. In a group of some 200 about 80 are 

 evidently starving. This is not a count, but a rough guess. The iiercentage in 

 general holds for all groups examined. 



In this record no effort was made to get full counts for lack of time. I have only 

 noted fli-hat I saw. It is very clear that the starving pup is in fullest evidence on the 

 Glinka rookeries. On these rookeries trampled pups must stand at the very minimum 

 because the rookeries are narrow and rocky, preventing massing, and bulls are few. 

 There is little chance of drowning. 



One pup in the water has crawled upon a rock about 10 feet from the shore to die. 

 The rising tide will drown him if he doesn't starve first. 



On the edge of the slide at Palata is a little brook which has worn a small gully 

 and which is doubtless responsible for the slide itself. In the brook were 4 dead 

 starved pups, and in a pod of 150 lying near it at least 50 more are starving. 



The governor of Medui Island seemed rather sensitive on the subject of dead 

 pups, as though he felt that he might be taken to task for it. He spoke of the 

 trampling of bulls as the cause. I tried to throw the blame on the pelagic sealers, 

 and expressed my hope that wise arrangements might put a stop to the loss. But it 

 would seem that the authorities think the less said the better on this subject. 



It is probable that most of the pods of pups along the beach are made up of 

 starving ones, the strong ones being in the water and on the bare outlying reef. 

 Even a fairly plump one seemed dull and dwarfish, while among the others are all 

 stages of emaciation. The excessively numerous beach flies make quick work of the 

 bodies. 



Separating Palata from Zapalata is a huge wall of cliff, at the foot of which, on 

 the Zapalata side, is a number of parallel or knife like reefs which extend well out to 

 sea, bare at low tide, and now black with seals and pups, the females almost as dark 

 as the young. The pups find excellent places for swimming between the reefs. A 

 good many are scattered about over the slide which forms the rookery, mostly asleep, 

 while many are crowded on the beach below. 

 15183— PT 4 11 



